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EDITED  BY  JOHN  MORLEY 


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B  Y  R  O  INT 


BY 


JOHN    NICHOL 


NEW    YORK 

HAEPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN      SQUARE 


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ENGLISH   MEN   OF   LETTERS. 
Edited  by  John  Morley. 


Johnson Leslie  Stephen. 

GinuoN J.  C.  Morison. 

Scott R.  H.  Hutton. 

Shkllby J.  A.  Symonds. 

Hume T.  H.  Huxley. 

Goldsmith \Villi.im   Black. 

Dbfob William  Minto. 

Burns J.  C.  Shairp. 

Spbnsbr R.  W.  Church. 

'I'HACKBRAV Anthony  Trollope. 

Ik'RKB John    Morley. 

Milton ^ Mark  Pattisnn. 

Hawthorns Henry  James,  Jr. 

SouTHBY E.  Dowden. 

Chaucer A.  W.  Ward. 

BuNVAN J.  A.  Froude. 

Shbridan  . . 


Cowpbr Goldwin  Smith. 

Porn Leslie  Stephen. 

BvRoN John  Nichol. 

Locks Thomas  I-'owler. 

WiiRDSwORiH F.  Myers. 

Drydbn G.  Saintsbury. 

Landor Sidney  Colvin. 

De  Quinckv David  Masson. 

Lamb Alfred  Ainger. 

Bentlby R.  C.  Jebb. 

Dickens A.  W.  Ward. 

Gray  E.  W.  Gosse. 

.Swift Leslie  Stephen. 

Sterns H.  D.  Traill. 

Macal'lay J.  Cotter  Morison. 

F'lEi.DiNG Austin  Dobion. 

.Mrs.  Oliphant. 


lamo,  Cloth,  75  cent*  per  volume. 


PuBLisHsn  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  Nnw  York. 

Any  of  tkt  above  wcrks  rvill  be  sent  by  mail,  fosiage  fref'aid,  to  any  fart 
0/  tk*  United  States,  oh  receipt  0/  the  price. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAQE 

Ancestry  and  Family 1 

CHAPTER  n. 

[17S8-IS0S.] 
Early  Years  and  School  Life 11 

CHAPTER  m. 

[IS08-1809.] 

Cambridge,  and  First  Period  of  Authorship. — Hours  op  Idle- 
ness.— Bards  and  Reviewers ^.  ...     34 

CHAPTER  rV. 

[1S09-1811.] 

Two  Years  op  Travel I  .     54 

CHAPTER  V. 

[1811-1815.] 

Life  in  London.  —  Correspondence  with  Scott  and  Moore. — 
Second   Period  op  Authorship.  —  Harold  (i.,  il),  and  t 
Romances 


^ 


CHAPTER  YL 

[1S15-1S16.] 

Marruge  and  Separation. — Farewell  to  England  ....     83 


VI  CONTENTS. 

CIIAPTEli  VII. 

[1S16-19'.'0.]  P^o, 

Switzerland. — Vknice. — Tiiiiu>  rKuioD  of  Aitiiouship. — IIak- 
OLD  (hi.,  IV.). — Manfred 101 

CUArTER  VIII. 
[1820-1821.] 

Ravenna. — Countess  Gciccioli. — The  Dramas. — Cain. — Vision 
OF  Judgment 132 

CHAPTER  IX. 

[1821-1823.] 

PiSA. — Genoa. — Tue  Liberal. — Don  Juan 151 

CnAriER  X. 

[1821-1824.] 

Politics. — Toe  Carbonari. — Exi'tniTioN  to  Greece. — Death.     177 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Characteristics,  AND  Place  in  Literature 198 


BOOKS    CONSULTED. 

1.  The  Narrative  of  tlie  Honourable  John  Byi'on,  Com- 

modore, in  a  late  Expedition  Round  the  World, 

&c.  (Baker  and  Leigh) 1768 

2.  Voyage  of  H.  M.  S.  Blonde  to  the  Sandwich  Islands 

in  the  years  1824-1825,  the  Eight  Hon.  Lord  By- 
ron, Commander  (John  Murray) 1836 

3.  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  the  Right  Hon. 

Lord  Byron  (H.Colburu) 1823 

4.  The  Life,  Writings,  Opinions,  and  Times  of  G.  G.  Noel 

Byron,  with  courtiers  of  the  present  polished  and 
enlightened  age,  &c.,  &g.,  3  vols.  (M.  Hey)    .     .     .     1825 

5.  Narrative  of  Lord  Byron's  last  Journey  to  Greece, 

from  Journal  of  Count  Peter  Gamha 1825 

6.  Medwin's  Conversations  with  Lord  Byron  at  Pisa, 

2  vols.  (H.  Colburu) 1825 

7.  Leigh  Hunt's  Byron  and  His  Contemporaries  (H. 

Colburn) 1828 

8.  The  Works  of  Lord  Byron,  with  Life  by  Thomas 

Moore,  17  vols.  (Murray) 1832 

9.  Gait's  Life  of  Lord  Byron  (Harpers) 1830 

10.  Kennedy's  Conversations  on  Religion  (Murray)    .     .     1830 

11.  Countess  of  Blessington's  Conversations  (Harpers)  .     1834 

12.  Lady  Morgan's  Memoirs,  2  vols.  (W.  H.  Allen)      .     .     1342 


viii  BOOKS  COXSULTED. 

1."^.  Kccollections  of  tho  Countess  Guiccioli  (Harpers)     .  1869 

II.  Castflar's  Genius  and  Cliaracter  of  liyrou  (Ilarpcrs)  1870 

15.  Elzo's  Life  of  Lord  Byron  (Murray) 1872 

10.  Tri'lawny's  Romiuisconcos  of  Byron  and  Shelley  .    .  1858 

17.  Torren's  Memoirs  of  Viscount  Melbourne  (^lacmillau)  1878 

18.  Efv.  F.  Hodgson's  Mciuoirs,  2  vols.  (Macmillan)    .     .  1879 
l[).  Essays  and  Articles,  or  Recorded  Criticisms,  by  Mao- 

aulay,  Scott,  Shelley,  Goethe,  G.  Brandes,  Mazzini, 
Saiuto  Beuve,  De  Chasles,  H.  Taiue,  &c. 
20.  Burke's  Knightage  and  Peerage 1879 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  BYRON  FAMIL 


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BYRON. 

CHAPTER  I. 

ANCESTRY    AND    FAMILY. 

Byron's  life  was  passed  under  the  fierce  light  that  beats 
upon  an  intellectual  throne.  He  succeeded  in  making 
himself — what  he  wished  to  be — the  most  notorious  per- 
sonality in  the  world  of  letters  of  our  century.  Almost 
every  one  who  came  in  contact  with  him  has  left  on  rec- 
ord various  impressions  of  intimacy  or  interview.  Those 
whom  he  excluded  or  patronized,  maligned;  those  to 
whom  he  was  genial,  loved  him.  Mr.  Southey,  in  all  sin- 
cerity, regarded  him  as  the  principle  of  Evil  incarnate ;  an 
American  writer  of  tracts  in  the  form  of  stories  is  of  the 
same  opinion :  to  the  Countess  Guiccioli  he  is  an  arch- 
angel. Mr.  Carlyle  considers  him  to  have  been  a  mere 
"sulky  dandy."  Goethe  ranks  him  as  the  first  English 
poet  after  Shakespeare,  and  is  followed  by  the  leading 
critics  of  France,  Italy,  and  Spain.  All  concur  in  the  ad- 
mission that  Byron  was  as  proud  of  his  race  as  of  his 
verse,  and  that  in  unexampled  measure  the  good  and  evil 
of  his  nature  were  inherited  and  inborn.  His  genealogy 
is,  therefore,  a  matter  of  no  idle  antiquarianism. 
1* 


2  J5YKUN.  [ciup. 

TliLTo  are  K-gciids  of  olJ  Norse  lUiniiis  iniifraliii^  Irom 
their  lioiiie  in  Scaiuliii.ivia,  and  bcttlinjj;,  one  branch  in 
Nprniaiuly,  another  in  Livonia,  To  the  latter  heU)nge(l  a 
shAtlowy  Marshal  tie  Ihinm,  famous  for  the  almost  abso- 
lute power  he  wielded  in  the  tlien  infant  realm  of  Russia. 
Two  members  of  the  family  came  over  with  the  Conquer- 
o%f  and  settled  in  England.  Of  Erneis  de  Burun,  who  had 
lands  in  York  and  Lincoln,  we  hear  little  more.  Ralph, 
the  poet's  ancestor,  is  mentioned  in  Doomsday  Book — 
our  first  authentic  record — as  having  estates  in  Notting- 
hamshire and  Derby.  His  son  Hugh  was  lord  of  Uorestan 
( 'astle  in  the  latter  county,  and  with  his  son  of  tlie  same 
name,  under  King  Stephen,  presented  the  church  of  Ossing- 
ton  to  the  monks  of  Lenton.  The  latter  Hugh  joined 
their  order;  but  the  race  was  continued  by  liis  son  Sir 
Roger,  who  gave  lands  to  the  monastery  of  Swiiistcad. 
This  brings  us  to  the  reign  of  Henry  H.  (1155-1189), 
when  Robert  de  Byron  adopted  the  spelling  of  his  name 
afterwards  retained,  and  by  his  niiirriage  with  Cecilia,  heir 
of  Sir  Richard  Clayton,  added  to  the  family  possessions 
an  estate  in  Lancashire,  where,  till  the  time  of  Henry  NHL, 
they  fixed  their  seat.  The  poet,  relying  on  old  wood- 
carvings  at  Xewstead,  claims  for  some  of  his  ancestors  a 
part  in  tin-  crusades,  and  mentions  a  name  not  apparently 
beloiiixiiiLT  to  that  aii 


"  Near  Asculon's  towers,  John  of  Uorestan  slumbers — " 

a  romance,  like  many  of  liis,  possibly  founded  on  fact,  but 
incapable  of  verification. 

Two  grandsons  of  Sir  Robert  have  a  more  substantial 
fame,  having  served  with  distinction  in  the  wars  of  Edward 
I.  The  elder  of  these  was  governor  of  the  city  of  York. 
Some  members  of  his  family  fought  at  Cressy,  and  one  of 


I.]  ANCESTRY  AND  FAMILY.  3 

his  sons,  Sir  Jolm,  was  knighted  by  Edward  III.  at  the 
siege  of  Calais,  Descending  through  the  other,  Sir  Rich- 
ard, we  come  to  another  Sir  John,  knighted  by  Richmond, 
afterwards  Henry  VIL,  on  his  Landing  at  Milford,  He 
fought,  with  his  kin,  on  the  field  of  Bosworth,  and  dying 
without  issue,  left  the  estates  to  his  brother,  Sir  Nicholas, 
knighted  in  1502,  at  the  marriage  of  Prince  Arthur.  Tlie 
son  of  Sir  Nicholas,  known  as  "  little  Sir  John  of  the  great 
beard,"  appears  to  have  been  a  favourite  of  Henry  VHL, 
who  made  him  Steward  of  Manchester  and  Lieutenant  of 
Sherwood,  and  on  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries  pre- 
sented him  with  the  Priory  of  Newstead,  the  rents  of  which 
were  equivalent  to  about  4000^.  of  our  nione3\  Sir  John, 
who  stepped  into  the  Abbey  in  1540,  married  twice,  and 
the  premature  appearance  of  a  son  by  the  second  wife — 
widow  of  Sir  George  Halgh — brought  the  bar  sinister  of 
which  so  much  has  been  made.  No  indication  of  this 
fact,  liowever,  appears  in  the  family  arms,  and  it  is  doubt- 
ful if  the  poet  was  aware  of  a  reproach  which  in  any  case 
does  not  touch  his  descent.  The  "  filius  naturalis,"  John 
Byron  of  Clayton,  inherited  by  deed  of  gift,  and  was 
knighted  by  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1579.  His  descendants 
were  prominent  as  staunch  Royalists  during  the  whole 
period  of  the  Civil  Wars.  At  Edgehill  there  were  seven 
Byrons  on  the  field. 

"  On  Marston,  with  Rupert  'gainst  traitors  contending, 
Four  brothers  enrich'd  with  their  blood  the  bleak  field." 

Sir  Nicholas,  one  of  the  seven,  is  extolled  as  "  a  person  of 
great  affability  and  dexterity,  as  well  as  martial  knowledge, 
which  gave  great  life  to  the  designs  of  the  well  affected." 
He  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Parliament  while  acting  as 
governor  of  Chester.     Under  his  nephew,  Sir  John,  New- 


4  BYROX.  [chap. 

stead  is  said  to  have  been  besieged  and  taken  ;  but  tho 
kiiii^lit  escaped,  in  tlie  words  of  the  poet — never  a  Radical 
at  heart — a  "  j)rotecting  genius, 

For  noblor  coinbats  here  reserved  his  life, 

To  lead  the  bunil  where  godlike  Falkland  fell." 

Clarendon,  indeed,  informs  us,  that  on  the  morning  before 
tlie  battle,  Falkland,  "  very  cheerful,  as  always  upon  action, 
put  himself  into  the  first  rank  of  the  Lord  JJyron's  regi- 
nuiit."  This  slightly  antedates  Lis  title.  The  first  bat- 
tle of  Newbury  was  fought  on  September,  1643.  For  liis 
services  there,  and  at  a  previous  royal  victory,  over  Waller 
in  July,  Sir  John  was,  on  October  24th  of  the  same  year, 
created  Baron  of  Rochdale,  and  so  became  the  first  Peer 
of  the  family. 

This  first  lord  was  succeeded  by  his  brother  Richard 
(1G05-1G79),  famous  in  the  war  for  his  government  and 
gallant  defence  of  Newark.  He  rests  in  the  vault  that 
now  contains  the  dust  of  the  greatest  of  his  race,  in  Iluck- 
nall  Torkard  Church,  where  his  epitaph  records  the  fact 
that  the  family  lost  all  their  present  fortunes  by  their 
loyalty,  adding,  "  yet  it  pleased  God  so  to  bless  the  humble 
endeavours  of  the  said  Richard,  Lord  Byron,  that  he  re- 
purchased part  of  their  ancient  inheritance,  which  he  left 
to  his  posterity,  with  a  laudable  memory  for  his  great  pie- 
tv  and  charity."  His  eldest  son,  \\'illiam,  the  third  lord 
(died  1695),  is  worth  remembering  on  two  accounts.  He 
married  Elizabeth,  the  daughter  of  Viscount  Chaworth, 
and  so  wove  the  first  link  in  a  strange  association  of  tragedy 
and  romance :  he  was  a  patron  of  one  of  those  poets  who, 
approved  by  neither  gods  nor  columns,  are  rememl»ered 
by  the  accident  of  an  accident,  and  was  himself  a  poetaster 
capable  of  the  couplet, — 


I.]  ANCESTRY  AXD  FAMILY.  5 

"  My  whole  ambition  only  does  extend 
To  gain  the  name  of  Shipman's  faithful  friend  " — 

an  ambition  which,  considering  its  moderate  scope,  may 
be  granted  to  have  attained  its  desire. 

His  successor,  the  fourth  lord  (1669-1736),  gentleman 
of  the  bedchamber  to  Prince  George  of  Denmark,  himself 
living  a  quiet  life,  became,  by  his  third  wife,  Frances, 
daughter  of  Lord  Berkeley,  the  progenitor  of  a  strange 
group  of  eccentric,  adventurous,  and  passionate  spirits. 
The  eldest  son,  the  fifth  lord,  and  immediate  predecessor 
in  the  peerage  of  the  poet,  was  born  in  1722,  entered  the  na- 
val service,  left  his  ship,  the  "  Victory,"  just  before  she  was 
lost  on  the  rocks  of  Alderney,  and  subsequently  became 
master  of  the  stag-hounds.  In  1765,  the  year  of  the  pass- 
ing of  the  American  Stamp  Act,  an  event  occurred  which 
coloured  the  whole  of  his  after-life,  and  is  curiously  illus- 
trative of  the  manners  of  the  time.  On  January  26th  or 
29th  (accounts  vary)  ten  members  of  an  aristocratic  social 
club  sat  dow^n  to  dinner  in  Pall-mall.  Lord  Byron  and  Mr. 
Chaworth,  his  neighbour  and  kinsman,  were  of  the  party. 
In  the  course  of  the  evening,  when  the  wine  was  going 
round,  a  dispute  arose  between  them  about  the  manage- 
ment of  game,  so  frivolous  that  one  conjectures  the  quar- 
rel to  have  been  picked  to  cloak  some  other  cause  of  of- 
fence. Bets  were  offered,  and  high  words  passed,  but  the 
company  thought  the  matter  had  blown  over.  On  going 
out,  however,  the  disputants  met  on  the  stairs,  and  one  of 
the  two,  it  is  uncertain  which,  cried  out  to  the  waiter  to 
show  them  an  empty  room.  This  was  done,  and  a  single 
tallow-candle  being  placed  on  the  table,  the  door  was  shut. 
A  few  minutes  later  a  bell  was  rung,  and  the  hotel  master 
rushing  in,  Mr.  Chaworth  was  found  mortally  wounded. 
There  had  been  a  struggle  in  the  dim  light,  and  Byron, 


G  HYROX.  [chap. 

liaviniT  received  tlic  first  lunge  harmlessly  in  his  waist- 
coat, liail  shortened  his  sword  and  run  his  adversary 
tliroiii^li  the  hody,  with  the  boast,  not  uncharacteristic  of 
his  grand-nephew,  "  By  G — d,  I  have  as  much  courage  as 
any  man  in  England."  A  coroner's  inquest  was  held,  and 
he  was  committed  to  the  Tower  on  a  charge  of  murder. 
Tlie  interest  in  the  trial,  which  subsequently  took  place  in 
Westminster  Hall,  was  so  great  that  tickets  of  admission 
were  sold  for  six  guineas.  The  peers,  after  two  days'  dis- 
cussion, unanimously  returned  a  verdict  of  manslaughter. 
r>yron,  pleading  his  privileges,  and  paying  his  fees,  was  set 
at  liberty  ;  but  he  appears  henceforth  as  a  spectre-haunted 
man,  roaming  about  under  false  names,  or  shut  up  in  the 
Abbey  like  a  baited  savage,  shunned  by  his  fellows  high 
and  low,  and  the  centre  of  the  wiMcst  stories.  That  ho 
shot  a  coachman,  and  flung  the  body  into  the  carriage  be- 
side his  wife,  who  very  sensibly  left  him ;  that  he  tried  to 
drown  her;  that  he  had  devils  to  attend  him — were  among 
the  many  weird  legends  of  "the  wicked  lord.''  The  poet 
himself  says  that  his  ancestor's  only  companions  were  the 
crickets  that  used  to  crawl  over  him,  receive  stripes  with 
straws  when  they  misbehaved,  and  on  his  death  made  an 
exodus  in  procession  from  the  house.  "When  at  home  he 
spent  his  time  in  pistol-shooting,  making  sham  fights  with 
wooden  ships  about  the  rockeries  of  the  lake,  and  building 
ugly  turrets  on  the  battlements.  He  liated  his  heir  pre- 
sumptive, sold  the  estate  of  Rochdale — a  proceeding  after- 
wards challenged — and  cut  down  the  trees  of  Newstead,  to 
spite  him  ;  but  he  survived  his  three  sons,  his  brother,  and 
his  only  grandson,  who  was  killed  in  Corsica  in  1794. 

On  his  own  death  in  1798,  the  estates  and  title  passed 
to  George  Gordon,  tlun  a  child  of  ten,  whom  he  used  to 
talk   of,  without   a  shadow  of  interest,  as  "  the  little  boy 


I.]  ANCESTRY  AND  FAMILY.  1 

who  lives  at  Aberdeen."  His  sister  Isabella  married  Lord 
Carlisle,  and  became  the  mother  of  the  fifth  earl,  the  poet's 
nominal  guardian.  She  was  a  lady  distinguished  for  ec- 
centricity of  manners,  and  (like  her  son  satirized  in  the 
Bards  and  Beviewers)  for  the  perpetration  of  indifferent 
verses.  The  career  of  the  fourth  lord's  second  son,  John, 
the  poet's  grandfather,  recalls  that  of  the  sea-kings  from 
■whom  the  family  claim  to  have  sprung.  Born  in  1723, 
he  at  an  early  age  entered  the  naval  service,  and  till  his 
death  in  1786  was  tossed  from  storm  to  storm.  "He  had 
no  rest  on  sea,  nor  I  on  shore,"  writes  his  illustrious  de- 
scendant. In  1740  a  fleet  of  five  ships  was  sent  out  un- 
der Commodore  Anson  to  annoy  the  Spaniards,  with  whom 
we  were  then  at  war,  in  the  South  Seas.  Byron  took  ser- 
vice as  a  midshipman  in  one  of  those  ships — all  more  or 
less  unfortunate  —  called  "The  AVager."  Being  a  bad 
sailer,  and  heavily  laden,  she  was  blown  from  her  compa- 
ny, and  wrecked  in  the  Straits  of  Magellan.  The  majority 
of  the  crew  were  cast  on  a  bleak  rock,  which  they  chris- 
tened Mount  Misery.  After  encountering  all  the  horrors 
of  mutiny  and  famine,  and  being  in  various  ways  deserted, 
five  of  the  survivors,  among  them  Captain  Cheap  and  Mr. 
Byron,  were  taken  by  some  Patagonians  to  the  Island  of 
Chiloe,  and  thence,  after  some  months,  to  Valparaiso. 
They  were  kept  for  nearly  two  years  as  prisoners  at  St. 
lago,  the  capital  of  Chili,  and  in  December,  1744,  put  on 
board  a  French  frigate,  which  reached  Brest  in  October, 
1745.  Early  in  1746  they  arrived  at  Dover  in  a  Dutch 
vessel. 

This  voyage  is  the  subject  of  a  well-known  apostrophe 
in  The  Pleasures  of  Hope,  beginnin*T^ — 

"  And  such  thy  strength-inspiring  aid  that  bore 
The  hardy  Byron  from  his  native  shore. 


8  BYRON.  [chap. 

In  torrid  climes,  where  Chiloe's  tempests  sweep 
Tumultuous  murmurs  o'er  the  trouljleil  deep, 
'Twas  his  to  mourn  misfortune's  rudest  shock, 
Scourged  by  the  winds  and  cradled  Ijy  the  rock." 

Bvron's  own  account  of  his  adventures,  published  in  1708, 
is  remarkable  for  freshness  of  scenery  like  that  of  our  first 
literary  traveller,  Sir  John  Mandeville,  and  a  force  of  de- 
scription which  recalls  Dofoe.  It  interests  us  more  espe- 
cially from  the  use  that  has  been  made  of  it  in  that  mar- 
vellous mosaic  of  voyaijes,  the  shipwreck,  in  Don  Juan, 
the  hardships  of  his  hero  being,  according  to  the  poet — 

"Comparative 
To  those  related  in  my  grand-dad's  narrative." 

In  June,  17G4,  Byron  sailed  with  two  ships,  the  "Dol- 
phin "  and  the  "  Tamar,"  on  a  voyage  of  discovery  ar- 
ranged by  Lord  Egmont,  to  seek  a  southern  continent,  in 
the  course  of  which  he  took  possession  of  the  largest  of 
the  Falkland  Islands,  again  passed  through  the  Magellanic 
Straits,  and  sailing  home  by  the  Pacific,  circumnavigated 
the  globe.  The  planets  so  conspired  that,  though  his  affa- 
ble manners  and  considerate  treatment  made  him  always 
popular  with  his  men,  sailors  became  afraid  to  serve  under 
"  foul-we.'ithcr  Jack."  In  1748  he  married  the  daughter 
of  a  Cornish  squire,  John  Trevanion.  They  had  two  sons 
and  three  daughters.  One  of  the  latter  married  her  cousin 
(the  fifth  lord's  eldest  son),  who  died  in  1V7G,  leaving  as 
his  sole  heir  the  youth  who  fell  in  the  Mediterranean  in 
1704. 

The  eldest  son  of  the  veteran,  John  Byron,  father  of 
the  poet,  was  born  in  1751,  educated  at  "Westminster,  and, 
having  received  a  commission,  became  a  captain  in  the 
guards;    but   his   character,  fundamentally    unprincipled, 


I.]  AXCESTRY  AND  FAMILY.  9 

soon  developed  itself  in  such  a  manner  as  to  alienate  him 
from  his  family.  In  1778,  under  circumstances  of  pecul- 
iar effrontery,  he  seduced  Amelia  D'Arcy,  the  daughter 
of  the  Earl  of  Holdernesse,  in  her  own  right  Countess 
Conyers,  then  wife  of  the  Marquis  of  Carmarthen,  after- 
wards Duke  of  Leeds.  "Mad  Jack,"  as  he  was  called, 
seems  to  have  boasted  of  his  conquest ;  but  the  marquis, 
to  whom  his  wife  had  hitherto  been  devoted,  refused  to 
believe  the  rumours  that  were  afloat,  till  an  intercepted  let- 
ter, containing  a  remittance  of  money,  for  which  Byron, 
in  reverse  of  the  usual  relations,  was  always  clamouring, 
brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  The  pair  decamped  to  the 
continent;  and  in  1779,  after  the  marquis  had  obtained 
a  divorce,  they  were  regularly  married."  Byron  seems  to 
have  been  not  only  profligate  but  heartless,  and  he  made 
life  wretched  to  the  woman  he  was  even  more  than  most 
husbands  bound  to  cherish.  She  died  in  1784,  having 
given  birth  to  two  daughters.  One  died  in  infancy ;  the 
other  was  Augusta,  the  half-sister  and  good  genius  of  the 
poet,  whose  memory  remains  like  a  star  on  the  fringe  of  a 
thunder-cloud,  only  brighter  by  the  passing  of  the  smoke 
of  calumny.  In  1807  she  married  Colonel  Leigh,  and  had 
a  numerous  family,  most  of  whom  died  young.  Her 
eldest  daughter,  Georgiana,  married  Mr.  Henry  Trevanion. 
The  fourth,  Medora,  had  an  unfortunate  history,  the  nu- 
cleus of  an  impertinent  and  happily  ephemeral  romance. 

The  year  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  John  Byron, 
who  seems  to  have  had  the  fascinations  of  a  Barry  Lyn- 
don, succeeded  in  entrapping  a  second.  This  was  Miss 
Catherine  Gordon  of  Gight,  a  lady  with  considerable  es- 
tates in  Aberdeenshire — which  attracted  the  adventurer — 
and  an  overweening  Highland  pride  in  her  descent  from 
James  I.,  the  greatest  of  the  Stuarts,  through  his  daughter 


10  BYKON.  (  I  .        [cuAP.  I. 

Annabella,  and  the  second  Earl  of  Uuntly.  This  union 
suggested  the  balhid  of  an  old  rliymer,  beginning — 

"  0  whare  are  yc  gaon,  bonny  Miss  Gordon, 

0  whare  are  ye  gaen,  sac  bonny  and  braw  ? 
Ye'vc  married,  ye've  married  wi'  Johnny  Byron, 
To  squander  the  lands  o'  Gight  awa'." 

The  prophecy  was  soon  fulfilled.  The  property  of  the 
Scotch  heiress  was  squandered  with  impetuous  rapidity 
by  the  English  rake.  In  1786  she  left  Scotland  for 
France,  and  returned  to  England  towards  the  close  of  the 
following  year.  On  the  22nd  of  January,  1V88,  in  Holies 
Street,  London,  Mrs.  Byron  gave  birth  to  her  only  child, 
George  Gordon,  sixth  lord.  Shortly  after,  being  pressed 
by  his  creditors,  the  father  abandoned  both,  and  leaving 
them  with  a  pittance  of  150/.  a  year,  fled  to  Valenciennes, 
where  he  died,  in  August,  1791. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EARLY    YEARS    AND    SCHOOL    LIFE. 

Soon  after  the  birth  of  her  son,  Mrs.  Byron  took  him  to 
Scotland.  After  spending  some  time  with  a  relation,  she, 
early  in  1790,  settled  in  a  small  house  at  Aberdeen.  Ere 
long  her  husband,  who  had  in  the  interval  dissipated  away 
his  remaining  means,  rejoined  her;  and  they  lived  togeth- 
er in  humble  lodgings,  until  their  tempers,  alike  fiery  and 
irritable,  compelled  a  definite  separation.  They  occupied 
apartments,  for  some  time,  at  the  opposite  ends  of  the 
same  street,  and  interchanged  visits.  Being  accustomed 
to  meet  the  boy  and  his  nurse,  the  father  expressed  a  wish 
that  the  former  should  be  sent  to  live  with  him,  at  least 
for  some  days.  "To  this  request,"  Moore  informs  us, 
"  Mrs.  Byron  was  at  first  not  very  willing  to  accede ;  but, 
on  the  representation  of  the  nurse  that  if  he  kept  him 
over  one  night  he  would  not  do  so  another,  she  consented. 
On  inquiring  next  morning  after  the  child,  she  was  told 
by  Captain  Byron  that  he  had  had  quite  enough  of  his 
young  visitor."  After  a  short  stay  in  the  north,  the  Cap- 
tain, extorting  enough  money  from  his  wife  to  enable  him 
to  fly  from  his  creditors,  escaped  to  France.  His  absence 
must  have  been  a  relief;  but  his  death  is  said  to  have  so 
affected  the  unhappy  lady,  that  her  shrieks  disturbed  the 
neighbourhood.  The  circumstance  recalls  an  anecdote  of 
a  similar  outburst  —  attested  by  Sir   W.  Scott,  who  was 


12  BYRON.  [cuAP. 

present  on  the  occasion  —  before  lior  niarna<:e.  Being 
present  at  a  representation,  in  EdinbiirLjli,  of  tlie  Fatal 
Marriage^  when  Mrs.  Siddons  was  personating  Isabella, 
Miss  Gordon  was  seized  with  a  fit,  and  carried  ont  of  the 
theatre,  screaming  ont  "  O  my  Biron,  my  Biron."  All  we 
know  of  her  character  shows  it  to  have  been  not  only 
prond,  impulsive,  and  wayward,  but  hysterical.  She  con- 
stantly boasted  of  her  descent,  and  clung  to  the  courtesy 
title  of  "  honourable,"  to  which  she  had  no  claim.  Her 
affection  and  anger  were  alike  demonstrative,  her  temper 
never  for  an  hour  secure.  She  half  worshipped,  half 
hated,  the  blackguard  to  whom  she  was  married,  and  took 
no  steps  to  protect  her  property;  her  son  she  alternately 
petted  and  abused.  "  Your  mother's  a  fool !"  said  a 
school  companion  to  him  years  after.  "  I  know  it,"  was 
his  unique  and  tragic  reply.  Never  was  poet  born  to  s 
'much  illustrious,  and  to  so  much  bad  blood.  I  The  re^ 
ords  of  his  infancy  betray  the  temper  which  hc'^preserved 
through  life  —  passionate,  sullen,  defiant  of  authority,  but 
isingularly  amenable  to  kindness.  On  being  scolded  by 
lis  first  nurse  for  liaving  soiled  a  dress,  without  uttering 
word  he  tore  it  from  top  to  scam,  as  he  had  seen  his 
3iother  tear  her  caps  and  gowns;  but  her  sister  and  suc- 
cessor in  office,  May  Gray,  acqiiired  and  retained  a  hold 
over  his  affections,  to  which  he  has  borne  grateful  testi- 
mony. To  her  training  is  attributed  the  early  and  re- 
markable knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  especially  of  the 
Psalms,  which  he  possessed :  he  was,  according  to  her 
later  testimony,  peculiarly  inquisitive  and  puzzling  about 
religion.  Of  the  sense  of  solitude,  induced  by  his  earliest 
impressions,  he  characteristically  makes  a  boast.  "My 
daughter,  my  wife,  my  half-sister,  my  mother,  my  sister's 
mother,  my  natural  daughter,  and  myself,  are  or  were  all 


II.]  EARLY  YEARS  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE.  13 

only  children.     But  the  fiercest  animals  have  the  fewest 
numbers  in  their  litters,  as  lions,  tigers,  &c." 

To  this  practical  orphanhood,  and  inheritance  of  feverish 
passion,  there  was  added  another,  and  to  him  a  heavy  and 
life-long  burden.  A  physical  defect  in  a  healthy  nature 
may  either  pass  without  notice  or  be  turned  to  a  high  pur- 
pose. No  line  of  his  work  reveals  the  fact  that  Sir  "Walter 
Scott  was  lame.  The  infirmity  failed  to  cast  even  a  pass- 
ing shade  over  that  serene  power.  Milton's  blindness  is 
the  occasion  of  the  noblest  prose  and  verse  of  resignation 
in  the  language.  But  to  understand  Pope,  we  must  re- 
member that  he  was  a  cripple :  and  Byron  never  allows 
us  to  forget,  because  he  himself  never  forgot  it.  Accounts 
differ  as  to  the  extent  and  origin  of  his  deformity ;  and  the 
doubts  on  the  matter  are  not  removed  by  the  inconsistent 
accounts  of  the  indelicate  post-mortem  examination  made 
by  Mr.  Trelawny  at  Mesolonghi.  It  is  certain  that  one  of 
the  poet's  feet  was,  either  at  birth  or  at  a  very  early  period, 
so  seriously  clubbed  or  twisted  as  to  affect  his  gait,  and  to 
a  considerable  extent  his  habits.  It  also  appears  that  the 
surgical  means — boots,  bandages,  &c. — adopted  to  straight- 
en the  limb,  only  aggravated  the  evil.  His  sensitiveness  on 
the  subject  was  early  awakened  by  careless  or  unfeeling 
references.  "  What  a  pretty  boy  Byron  is !"  said  a  friend 
of  his  nurse.  "  What  a  pity  he  has  such  a  leg !"  On 
which  the  child,  with  flashing  eyes,  cutting  at  her  with  a* 
baby's  whip,  cried  out,  "Dinna  speak  of  it."  His  moth- 
er herself,  in  her  violent  fits,  when  the  boy  ran  round  the 
room  laughing  at  her  attempts  to  catch  him,  used  to  say 
he  was  a  little  dog,  as  bad  as  his  father,  and  to  call  him 
"  a  lame  brat " — an  incident  which  notoriously  suggested 
the  opening  scene  of  the  Deformed  Transformed.  In  the 
height  of  his  popularity  he  fancied  that  the  beggars  and 


> 


v^  BYROX.  [iiup. 

street-sweepers  in  London  were  mocking  bim.     He  sat- 
irized and  discourai:;od  dancing ;  he  preferred  riding  and 
swimming  to  other  exercises,  because  tliey  concealed  Lis 
'  weakness;  andonhis  dcath-bcd  asked  to  be  blistered  in 
S  snch  a  way  that  he  might  not  be  called  on  to  expose  it. 
V  The  Countess  Guiccioli,  Lady  lilossington,  and  others,  as- 
,    sure  us  that  in  society  fow  .^'ould  have  observed  the  defect 
if  he  had  not  referred  to  it ;  but  it  was  never  far  from  the 

\ mind,  and  therefore  ncrcTf.iT  from  the  mouth,  of  the  least 
reticent  of  men. 

In  1792  he  was  sent  to  a  rudimentary  day  school  of 
girls  and  boys,  taught  by  a  Mr.  Bowers,  where  he  seems  to 
have  learnt  notliing  save  to  repeat  monosyllables  by  rote. 
He  next  passed  through  the  hands  of  a  devout  and  clever 
clergyman,  named  Ross,  under  whom,  according  to  his  own 
account,  he  made  astonishing  progress,  being  initiated  into 
the  study  of  Roman  history,  and  taking  special  delight  in 
the  battle  of  Regillus.  Long  afterwards,  when  standing 
on  the  heights  of  Tusculum  and  looking  down  on  the  lit- 
tle round  lake,  he  remembered  his  young  enthusiasm  and 
his  old  instructor.  He  next  came  under  the  charge  of  a 
tutor  called  Paterson,  whom  he  describes  as  "a  very  seri- 
ous, saturnine,  but  kind  young  man.  He  was  the  son  of 
my  shoemaker,  but  a  good  scholar.  "With  him  I  began 
Latin,  and  continued  till  I  went  to  the  grammar  school, 
where  I  threaded  all  the  classes  to  the  fourth,  when  I  was 
recalled  to  England  by  the  demise  of  my  uncle." 
"^  Of  Byron's  early  school  days  there  is  little  further  record. 
We  learn  from  scattered  hints  that  he  was  backward  in 
technical  scholarship,  and  low  in  his  class,  in  which  he 
seems  to  have  had  no  ambition  to  stand  liigh ;  but  that 
he  eagerly  took  to  history  and  romance,  especially  luxuri- 
ating in  the  Arabian  Nights.     He  was  an  indifferent  pen- 


II.]       EARLY  YEAES  AND  SCHOOL  Lff^/''*^      15 

man,  and  always  disliked  mathematics;  but  was  noted  by 
masters  and  mates  as  of  quick  temper,  eager  for  adventures, 
prone  to  sports,  always  more  ready  to  give  a  blow  than  to 
take  one,  affectionate,  though  resentful. 

When  his  cousin  was  killed  at  Corsica,  in  1794,  he  be- 
came the  next  heir  to  the  title.  In  1797,  a  friend,  mean- 
ing to  compliment  the  boy,  said,  "  We  shall  have  the 
pleasure  some  day  of  reading  your  speeches  in  the  House 
of  Commons,"  he,  with  precocious  consciousness,  replied, 
"  I  hope  not.  If  you  read  any  speeches  of  mine,  it  will 
be  in  the  House  of  Lords,"  Similarly,  when,  in  the  course 
of  the  following  year,  the  fierce  old  man  at  Newstead  died, 
and  the  young  lord's  name  was  called  at  school  with  "  Dom- 
inus  "  prefixed  to  it,  his  emotion  was  so  great  that  he  was 
unable  to  answer,  and  burst  into  tears. 

Belonging  to  this  period  is  the  somewhat  shadowy  rec- 
ord of  a  childish  passion  for  a  distant  cousin  slightly  his 
senior,  Mary  Duff,  with  whom  he  claims  to  have  fallen  in 
love  in  his  ninth  year.  We  have  a  quaint  picture  of  the 
pair  sitting  on  the  grass  together,  the  girl's  younger  sister 
beside  them  playing  with  a  doll.  A  German  critic  gravely 
remarks,  "  This  strange  phenomenon  places  him  beside 
Dante."  Byron  himself,  dilating  on  the  strength  of  his 
attachment,  tells  us  that  he  used  to  coax  a  maid  to  write 
letters  for  him,  and  that  when  he  was  sixteen,  on  being  in- 
formed by  his  mother  of  Mary's  marriage,  he  nearly  fell 
into  convulsions.  But  in  the  history  of  the  calf-loves  of 
poets  it  is  diflBcult  to  distinguish  between  the  imaginative- 
afterthought  and  the  reality.  This  equally  applies  to  oth- 
er recollections  of  later  years.  Moore  remarks — "  that  the 
charm  of  scenery,  which  derives  its  chief  power  from  fancy 
and  association,  should  be  felt  at  an  age  when  fancy  is  yet 
hardlv  awake  and  associations  are  but  few,  can  with  diffi- 


16  BYRON.  [chap. 

culty  be  conceived."  But  between  the  ages  of  eight  and 
ten  an  appreciation  of  external  beauty  is  sufficiently  com- 
mon. No  one  doubts  the  accuracy  of  Wordsworth's  ac- 
count, in  the  Prelude^  of  his  early  half-sensuous  delight  in 
mountain  glory.  It  is  impossible  to  define  the  influence 
of  Nature,  either  on  nations  or  individuals,  or  to  say  be- 
forehand what  selection  from  bis  varied  surroundings  a 
poet  will,  for  artistic  purposes,  elect  to  make.  Shakspeare 
rests  in  meadows  and  glades,  and  leaves  to  Milton  "  Tene- 
riffc  and  Atlas."  Burns,  who  lived  for  a  considerable  part 
of  his  life  in  daily  view  of  the  hills  of  Arran,  never  alludes 
lo  them.  But  in  this  respect,  like  Shelley,  Byron  was  in- 
spired by  a  passion  for  the  high-places  of  the  earth.  Their 
shadow  is  on  half  his  verse.  "The  loftiest  peaks  most 
wrapt  in  clouds  and  snow  "  perpetually  remind  him  of  one 
of  his  constantly  recurring  refrains — 

"  He  who  surpasses  or  subdues  mankind, 
Must  look  down  on  the  hate  of  those  below." 

In  the  course  of  179G,  after  an  attack  of  scarlet  fever  at 
Aberdeen,  he  was  taken  by  his  mother  to  Ballater,  and  on 
his  recovery  spent  much  of  his  time  in  rambling  about  the 
country.  "  From  this  period,"  he  says,  "  I  date  my  love 
of  mountainous  countries.  I  can  never  forget  the  effect, 
years  afterwards,  in  England,  of  the  only  thing  I  had  long 
seen,  even  in  miniature,  of  a  mountain,  in  the  Malvern  Hills, 
After  I  returned  to  Cheltenham  I  used  to  watch  them  every 
afternoon,  at  sunset,  with  a  sensation  which  I  cannot  de- 
scribe." Elsewhere,  in  The  Island,  he  returns,  amid  allu- 
sions to  the  Alps  and  Apennines,  to  the  friends  of  his 
youth : — 

"  The  infant  rapture  still  survived  the  boy, 
And  Lach-na-f'air  with  Ida  look'd  o'er  Troy, 


n.]  EARLY  YEARS  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE.  17 

Mixed  Celtic  memories  with  the  Phrygian  mount, 
And  Highland  linus  with  Castalie's  clear  fount." 

The  poet,  owing  to  his  physical  defect,  was  not  a  great 
climber,  and  we  are  informed,  on  the  authority  of  his 
nurse,  that  he  never  even  scaled  the  easily  attainable  sum- 
mit of  the  "  steep  frowning "  hill  of  which  he  has  made 
such  effective  use.  Bat  the  impression  of  it  from  a  dis- 
tance was  none  the  less  genuine.  In  the  midst  of  a  gen- 
erous address,  in  Don  Juan,  to  Jeffrey,  he  again  refers 
to  the  same  associations  with  the  country  of  his  early 
training : — 

"  But  I  am  half  a  Scot  by  birth,  and  bred 
A  whole  one ;  and  my  heart  flies  to  my  head 
As  '  Auld  Lang  Syne '  brings  Scotland,  one  and  all — 
Scotch  plaids,  Scotch  snoods,  the  blue  hills  and  clear  streams, 
The  Dee,  the  Don,  Balgounie's  brig's  black  wall — 
All  my  boy  feelings,  all  my  gentler  dreams 
Of  what  I  then  dreamt,  clothed  in  their  own  pall, 
Like  Banquo's  offspring.  .  .  ." 

Byron's  allusions  to  Scotland  are  variable  and  incon- 
sistent. His  satire  on  her  reviewers  was  sharpened  by 
the  show  of  national  as  well  as  personal  antipathy ;  and 
when,  about  the  time  of  its  production,  a  young  lady  re- 
marked that  he  had  a  little  of  the  northern  manner  of 
speech,  he  burst  out,  "  Good  God !  I  hope  not.  I  would 
rather  the  whole  d — d  country  was  sunk  in  the  sea.  I 
the  Scotch  accent!"  But  in  the  passage  from  which  we 
have  quoted  the  swirl  of  feeling  on  the  other  side  con- 
tinues,— 

"  I  rail'd  at  Scots  to  show  my  wrath  and  wit, 
Which  must  be  own'd  was  sensitive  and  surly. 
Yet  'tis  in  vain  such  sallies  to  permit ; 
They  cannot  quench  young  feelings,  fresh  and  early. 
2 


18  BYRON.  [chap. 

I  scotch'd,  not  kill'd,  the  Scotchman  in  my  blood, 
And  luvc  the  land  of  mountain  and  of  flood." 

This  suggests  a  few  words  on  a  question  of  more  than 
local  interest.  Byron's  most  careful  biographer  has  said 
of  him :  "  Although  on  his  first  expedition  to  Greece  he 
was  dressed  in  the  tartan  of  the  Gordon  clan,  yet  the 
whole  bent  of  his  mind,  and  the  character  of  his  poetry, 
are  anything  but  Scottish.  Scottish  nationality  is  taint- 
ed with  narrow  and  provincial  elements.  Byron's  poetic 
character,  on  the  other  hand,  is  universal  and  cosmopoli- 
tan. He  had  no  attachment  to  localities,  and  never  de- 
voted himself  to  the  study  of  the  history  of  Scotland 
and  its  romantic  legends."  Somewhat  similarly  Thomas 
Campbell  remarks  of  Burns,  "  lie  was  the  most  un-Scots- 
HKinlikc  of  Scotchmen,  having  no  caution."  Rough  na- 
tional verdicts  arc  apt  to  be  superficial.  Mr.  Leslie  Ste- 
phen, in  a  review  of  Hawthorne,  has  commented  on  the  ex- 
tent to  which  the  nobler  qualities  and  conquering  energy 
of  the  English  character  are  hidden,  not  only  from  foreign- 
ers, but  from  our.selves,  by  the  "  detestable  lay  figure  "  of 
John  Bull.  In  like  manner,  the  obtrusive  type  of  the 
"  canny  Scot "  is  apt  to  make  critics  forget  the  hot  heart 
that  has  marked  the  early  annals  of  the  country,  from  the 
Hebrides  to  the  Borders,  with  so  much  violence,  and  at  the 
same  time  has  been  the  source  of  so  much  strong  feeling 
-and  persistent  purpose.  Of  late  years,  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence, the  temptations  of  a  too  ambitious  and  over-ac- 
tive people  in  the  race  for  wealth,  and  the  benumbing  ef- 
fect of  the  constant  profession  of  beliefs  that  have  ceased 
to  be  sincere,  have  for  the  most  part  stilled  the  fervid  fire 
in  calculating  prudence.  These  qualities  have  been  ade- 
quately combined  in  Scott  alone,  the  one  massive  and  com- 
plete literary  type  of  his   race.     Burns,  to   his  ruin,  had 


II.]  EARLY  YEARS  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE.  19 

only  the  fire :  the  same  is  true  of  Byron,  whose  genius, 
in  some  respects  less  genuine,  was  indefinitely  and  inevi- 
tably wider.  His  intensely  susceptible  nature  took  a  dye 
from  every  scene,  city,  and  society  through  which  he  pass- 
ed; but  to  the  last  he  bore  with  him  the  marks  of  a  de- 
scendant of  the  Sea-Kings,  and  of  the  mad  Gordons  in 
whose  domains  he  had  first  learned  to  listen  to  the  sound 
of  the  "  two  mighty  voices "  that  haunted  and  inspired 
him  through  life. 

In  the  autumn  of  1798  the  family, «.  e.,  his  mother — • 
who  had  sold  the  whole  of  her  household  furniture  for  'J 51. 
— with  himself,  and  a  maid,  set  south.  The  poet's  only 
recorded  impression  of  the  journey  is  a  gleam  of  Loch 
Leven,  to  whicli  he  refers  in  one  of  his  latest  letters.  He 
never  revisited  the  land  of  his  birth.  Our  next  glimpse  of 
him  is  on  his  passing  the  toll-bar  of  Xewstead,  Mrs,  By- 
ron asked  the  old  woman  who  kept  it,  "  Who  is  the  next 
heir  ?"  and  on  her  answer  "  They  say  it  is  a  little  boy  who 
lives  at  Aberdeen,"  "  This  is  he,  bless  him  !"  exclaimed  the 
nurse. 

Returned  to  the  ancestral  Abbey,  and  finding  it  half 
ruined  and  desolate,  they  migrated  for  a  time  to  the  neigh- 
bouring Nottingham,  Here  the  child's  first  experience 
was  another  course  of  surgical  torture.  He  was  placed 
under  the  charge  of  a  quack  named  Lavender,  who  rubbed 
his  foot  in  oil,  and  screwed  it  about  in  wooden  machines. 
This  useless  treatment  is  associated  with  two  characteris- 
tic anecdotes.  One  relates  to  the  endurance  which  Byron, 
on  every  occasion  of  mere  physical  trial,  was  capable  of 
displaying,  Mr.  Rogers,  a  private  tutor,  with  whom  he 
was  reading  passages  of  Virgil  and  Cicero,  remarked,  "  It 
makes  me  uncomfortable,  my  lord,  to  see  you  sitting  there 
in  such  pain  as  I  know  you  must  be  suflfering."     "  Never 


20  BYROX.  [chap. 

uiitiil,  Mr.  Rotors,"  said  tlic  cliild,  "yon  sliall  not  sec  any 
signs  of  it  in  inc."  The  otlu-r  illustrates  his  precocious 
delight  in  detecting  inipostiirc.  Having  scribbled  on  a 
piece  of  paper  several  lines  of  mere  gibberish,  he  brought 
them  to  Lavender,  and  gravely  asked  what  language  it 
was;  and  on  receiving  the  answer,  "  It  is  Italian,"  he  broke 
into  an  exultant  laugh  at  the  expense  of  his  tormentor. 
Another  story  survives,  of  his  vindictive  spirit  giving 
birth  to  his  first  rhymes.  A  meddling  old  lady,  who  used 
to  visit  his  mother  and  was  possessed  of  a  curious  belief 
in  a  future  transmigration  to  our  satellite — the  bleakness 
of  whose  scenery  she  had  not  realized — having  given  him 
some  cause  of  offence,  he  stormed  out  to  his  nurse  tliat  he 
"could  not  bear  the  sight  of  the  witch,"  and  vented  his 
wrath  in  the  couplet, — 

"  In  Nottingliain  county  there  lives,  at  Swan  Green, 
As  curst  an  old  lady  as  ever  was  seen ; 
And  when  she  does  die,  which  I  hope  will  be  soon, 
She  firmly  believes  she  will  go  to  the  moon." 

The  poet  himself  dates  liis  "  first  dash  into  poetry  "  a 
year  later  (1800),  froui  his  juvenile  passion  for  his  cousin 
Margaret  Parker,  whose  subsequent  death  from  an  injury 
caused  by  a  fall  he  afterwards  deplored  in  a  forgotten  el- 
egy. "  I  do  not  recollect,"  he  writes  tliroiigii  the  transfig- 
uring mists  of  memory,  "anything  equal  to  the  transpa- 
rent beauty  of  my  cousiu,  or  to  the  sweetness  of  lier  tem- 
per, during  the  short  period  of  our  intimacy.  She  looked 
as  if  she  had  been  made  out  of  a  rainbow — all  beauty  and 
peace.  My  passion  had  the  usual  effects  upon  me  —  I 
could  not  sleep ;  I  could  not  eat ;  I  could  not  rest.  It 
was  the  texture  of  my  life  to  think  of  the  time  that  must 
elapse  before  we  could  meet  again.  But  I  was  a  fool 
then,  and  nut  much  wiser  now."      Sic  transit  secanda. 


II.]  EARLY  YEARS  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE.  21 

The  departure  at  a  soniewluit  earlier  date  of  !May  Gray 
for  ber  native  country  gave  rise  to  evidence  of  another 
kind  of  affect i<Mi.  On  her  leaving,  he  presented  her  with 
his  first  watch,  and  a  miniature  by  Kay,  of  Edinburgh,  rep- 
resenting him  with  a  bow  and  arrow  in  his  hand  and  a 
profusion  of  hair  over  his  shoulders.  He  continued  to 
correspond  with  her  at  intervals.  Byron  was  always  be- 
loved by  his  servants.  This  nurse  afterwards  married 
well,  and  during  her  last  illness,  in  1827,  communicated  to 
her  attendant.  Dr.  Ewing,  of  Aberdeen,  recollections  of 
the  poet,  fi'oin  which  his  biographers  have  drawn. 

In  the  summer  of  1799  he  was  sent  to  London,  en- 
trusted to  the  medical  care  of  Dr.  Baillie  (brother  of  Jo- 
anna, the  dramatist),  and  placed  in  a  boarding  school  c.t 
Dulwich,  under  the  charge  of  Dr.  Glennie.  The  physi- 
cian advised  a  moderation  in  athletic  sports,  which  the 
patient  in  his  hours  of  liberty  was  constantly  apt  to  ex- 
ceed. The  teacher — who  continued  to  cherish  an  affec- 
tionate remembrance  of  his  pupil,  even  when  he  was  told, 
on  a  visit  to  Geneva  in  1817,  that  he  ought  to  have 
"  made  a  better  boy  of  him  " — testifies  to  the  alacrity  with 
which  he  entered  on  his  tasks,  his  playful  good-humour 
•with  his  comrades,  his  reading  in  history  beyond  his  age, 
and  his  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  Scriptures.  "  In 
my  study,"  he  states,  "  he  found  many  books  open  to  him  ; 
among  others,  a  set  of  our  poets  from  Chaucer  to  Church- 
ill, which  I  am  almost  tempted  to  say  he  had  more  than 
once  perused  from  beginning  to  end."  One  of  the  books 
referred  to  was  the  Narrative  of  the  Shipwreck  of  the 
"  Juno^''  which  contains,  almost  word  for  word,  the  ac- 
count of  the  "  two.  fathers,"  in  Don  Juan.  Meanwhile 
Mrs.  Byron — whose  reduced  income  had  been  opportune- 
ly augmented  by  a  grant  of  a  300^.  annuity  from  the 


22  BYRON.  [ciiAP. 

(.'i\  il  List — aftcT  revisiting  Newstead,  followed  her  son  to 
London,  and  took  up  her  residence  in  a  liouse  in  Sloanc- 
tcrrace.  She  was  in  the  habit  of  having  him  with  her 
there  from  Saturday  to  Monday,  kept  him  from  school  for 
weeks,  introduced  him  to  idle  company,  and  in  oilier  ways 
was  continually  hampering  his  progress. 

r>yron  on  his  accession  to  the  peerage,  having  become  a 
ward  in  Chancery,  was  handed  over  by  the  Court  to  the 
guardianship  of  Lord  Carlisle,  nephew  of  the  admiral,  and 
son  of  the  grand-aunt  of  the  poet.  Like  his  mother,  this 
earl  aspired  to  be  a  poet,  and  his  tragedy.  The  Fathe/s 
Revenge,  vccq\\Q{{  some  commendation  from  Dr.  Johnson  ; 
but  his  relations  with  his  illustrious  kinsman  were  from 
*Ll'  iirst  unsatisfactory.  In  answer  to  Dr.  (Jlennie's  ap- 
peal, he  exerted  his  authority  against  the  interruptions  to 
his  ward's  education  ;  but  the  attempt  to  mend  matters 
led  to  such  outrageous  exhibitions  of  temper  that  he  said 
to  the  master,  "  I  can  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  Mrs. 
Byron  ;  you  must  now  manage  her  as  you  can."  Finally, 
after  two  years  of  work,  which  she  had  done  her  best  to 
mar,  she  herself  requested  his  guardian  to  have  her  son  re- 
moved to  a  public  school,  and  accordingly  he  went  to  Har- 
row, where  he  remained  till  the  autumn  of  1805.  The 
first  vacation,  in  the  summer  of  1801,  is  marked  by  his 
visit  to  Cheltenham,  where  his  mother,  from  whom  he  in- 
herited a  fair  amount  of  Scotch  superstition,  consulted  a 
fortune-teller,  who  said  he  would  be  twice  married,  the 
second  time  to  a  foreigner. 

Harrow  was  then  under  the  management  of  Dr.  Joseph 
Drury,  one  of  the  most  estimable  of  its  distinguished 
liead-masters.  His  account  of  tlie  first  impressions  pro- 
duced by  his  pupil,  and  his  judicious  manner  of  handling 
a  sensitive  nature,  cannot  with  advantage  be  condensed. 


n.]  EARLY  YEARS  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE.  23 

"  Mr.  Hanson,"  he  writes,  "  Lord  Byron's  solicitor,  con- 
sio-ned  him  to  iny  care  at  the  age  of  thirteen  and  a  half, 
with  remarks  that  his  education  had  been  neglected  ;  that 
he  was  ill  prepared  for  a  public  school ;  but  that  he 
thought  there  was  a  cleverness  about  him.  After  his  de- 
parture I  took  my  young  disciple  into  my  study,  and  en- 
deavoured to  bring  him  forward  by  inquiries  as  to  his 
former  amusements,  employments,  and  associates,  but  with 
little  or  no  eflPect,  and  I  soon  found  that  a  wild  mountain 
colt  had  been  submitted  to  my  management.  But  there 
was  mind  in  his  eye.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  necessary 
to  attach  him  to  an  elder  boy  ;  but  the  information  he 
received  gave  him  no  pleasure  when  he  heard  of  the  ad- 
vances of  some  much  younger  than  himself.  This  I  dis- 
covered, and  assured  Lim  that  he  should  not  be  placed  till 
by  diligence  he  might  rank  with  those  of  his  own  age. 
His  manner  and  temper  soon  convinced  me  that  he  might 
be  led  by  a  silken  string  to  a  point,  rather  than  a  cable : 
on  that  principle  I  acted." 

After  a  time,  Dr.  Drury  tells  us  that  he  waited  on  Lord 
Carlisle,  who  wished  to  give  some  information  about  his 
ward's  property  and  to  inquire  respecting  his  abilities,  and 
continues  :  "  On  the  former  circumstance  I  made  no  re- 
mark ;  as  to  the  latter  I  replied,  '  He  has  talents,  my 
lord,  which  will  add  lustre  to  his  rank.'  '  Indeed  !'  said 
his  lordship,  with  a  degree  of  surprise  that,  according  to 
my  feeling,  did  not  express  in  it  all  the  satisfaction  I  ex- 
pected." "With,  perhaps,  unconscious  humour  on  the  part 
of  the  writer,  we  are  left  in  doubt  as  to  whether  the  indif- 
ference proceeded  from  the  jealousy  that  clings  to  poetas- 
ters, from  incredulity,  or  a  feeling  that  no  talent  ccmld  add 
lustre  to  rank. 

In  1804  Byron  refers  to  the  antipathy  his  mother  had 


24  BYKOX.  [ni.u'. 

to  Ills  guarilian.  Later  lie  expresses  gratitude  for  some 
unknown  service,  in  reco^^nition  of  whieli  tlie  second  edi- 
tion of  the  Hoars  of  Idleness  was  dedicated  "  by  liis 
obliged  ward  and  affectionate  kinsman,"  to  Lord  Carlisle. 
The  tribute  being  coldly  received,  led  to  fresh  estrange- 
ment, and  when  Byron,  on  his  coming  of  .ige,  wrote  to 
remind  the  earl  of  tlie  fact,  in  expectation  of  being  intro- 
duced to  the  House  of  Peers,  he  had  for  answer  a  mere 
formal  statement  of  its  rules.  This  rebuff  affected  him  as 
Adilison's  praise  of  Tickell  affected  Pope,  and  the  follow- 
ing lines  were  published  in  the  March  of  the  same  year: — 

"  Lords  too  are  banls  !  siuh  tilings  at  times  befall, 
Aud  'tis  some  praise  in  peers  to  write  at  all. 
Yet  did  or  taste  or  reason  sway  the  times, 
Ah  !  who  would  take  tlieir  titles  with  their  rhvmcs. 
Roscommon  !  Sheffield  !  with  your  spirits  fled, 
No  future  laurels  deck  a  noble  head  ; 
No  muse  will  cheer,  with  renovating  smile, 
The  paralytic  puling  of  Carlisle." 

In  prose  he  adds,  "  If,  before  I  escaped  from  my  teens,  I 
said  anything  in  favour  of  his  lordship's  paper -books  it 
was  in  the  way  of  dutiful  dedicatit)n,  and  more  from  the 
advice  of  others  than  my  own  judgment;  and  I  seize  the 
first  opportunity  of  pronouncing  my  sincere  recantation." 
As  was  frc(|uently  the  case  with  him,  he  recanted  again. 
In  a  letter  of  l.'^14  he  expressed  to  Rogers  his  regret  for 
liis  sarcasms  ;  and  in  his  reference  to  the  death  of  the  Lion. 
Frederick  Uoward,  in  the  third  canto  of  Childe  Harold,  ho 
tried  to  make  amends  in  the  lines — 

"  Yet  one  I  would  select  from  that  proud  throng, 
Partly  because  they  blend  me  with  his  line, 
And  partly  tliat  I  did  his  sire  some  wrong." 


ii.J  EARLY  YEARS  AXD  SCHOOL  LIFE.  2o 

This  is  all  of  any  interest  we  know  regarding  the  fitful 
connection  of  tlie  guardian  and  ward. 

Towards  Dr.  Drury  the  poet  continued  through  life  to 
cherish  sentiments  of  gratitude,  and  always  spoke  of  him 
with  veneration.  "  He  was,"  he  says,  "  the  best,  the  kind- 
est (and  yet  strict  too)  friend  I  ever  had ;  and  I  look  on 
him  still  as  a  father,  whos.e  warnings  I  have  remembered 
but  too  well,  though  too  late,  when  I  have  erred,  and  whose 
counsel  I  have  but  followed  when  I  have  done  well  or 
wisely." 

Great  educational  institutions  must  consult  the  greatest 
good  of  the  greatest  number  of  commonplace  minds,  by 
regulations  against  which  genius  is  apt  to  kick;  and  By- 
ron, who  was  by  nature  and  lack  of  discipline  peculiarly 
ill-fitted  to  conform  to  routine,  confesses  that  till  the  last 
year  and  a  half  he  hated  Harrow.  He  never  took  kindly 
to  the  studies  of  the  place,  and  was  at  no  time  an  accurate 
scholar.  In  the  Bards  and  Reviewers,  and  elsewhere,  he 
evinces  considerable  familiarity  with  the  leading  authors 
of  antiquity,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  was  able  to  read 
any  of  the  more  difficult  of  them  in  the  original.  His 
translations  are  generally  commonplace,  and  from  the 
marks  on  his  books  he  must  have  often  failed  to  trust 
his  memory  for  the  meanings  of  the  most  ordinary  Greek 
words.  To  the  well-known  passage  in  Childe  Harold  on 
Soracte  and  the  "  Latian  echoes"  he  appends  a  prose  com- 
ment \vhich  preserves  its  interest  as  bearing  on  recent  edu- 
cational controversies:  ''I  wish  to  express  that  we  become 
tired  of  the  task  before  we  can  comprehend  the  beauty; 
that  we  learn  by  rote  before  w^e  get  by  heart;  that  the 
freshness  is  worn  away,  and  the  future  pleasure  and  ad- 
vantage deadened  and  destroyed,  at  an  age  when  we  can 
neither  feel  nor  understand  the  power  of  composition,  which 
2* 


26  BVKoX.  [cuAP. 

it  requires  an  acquaintance  witli  life,  as  well  as  Latin  and 
Cireck,  to  relish  or  to  reason  upon.  ...  In  some  parts  of 
tlic  continent  youni^  persons  are  tauf;lit  from  common  au- 
tliors,  and  do  not  read  the  best  classics  till  their  maturity." 
Comparatively  slight  stress  was  then  laid  on  modern 
languages.  Byron  learnt  to  read  French  with  tlueney,  as 
he  certainly  made  himself  faniiliar  with  the  great  works 
of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  but  he  spoke  it  with  so  little 
case  or  accuracy  that  the  fact  was  always  a  stumbling- 
block  to  his  meeting  Frenchmen  abroad.  Of  German  he 
had  a  mere  smattering.  Italian  was  the  only  language, 
besides  liis  own,  of  which  he  was  ever  a  master.  But  the 
extent  and  variety  of  his  general  reading  was  remarkable. 
His  list  of  books,  drawn  up  in  1807,  includes  more  history 
and  biography  than  most  men  of  education  read  during  a 
long  life;  a  fair  load  of  philosophy;  the  poets  en  masse; 
among  orators,  Demosthenes,  Cicero,  and  Parliamentary 
debates  from  the  Revolution  to  the  year  1742;  pretty 
copious  divinity,  incluiling  Blair,  Tillotson,  Hooker,  with 
the  characteristic  aildition — "all  very  tiresome.  I  abhor 
books  of  religion,  though  I  reverence  and  love  my  God 
without  the  blasphemous  notions  of  sectaries."  Lastly, 
under  the  head  of  "Miscellanies"  we  liavc  Spectator, 
Rambler,  World,  etc.,  Arc. ;  among  novels,  the  works  of 
Cervantes,  Fielding,  Smollett,  Richardson,  Mackenzie, 
Sterne,  Rabelais,  and  Rousseau.  He  recommends  Burton's 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy  as  the  best  storehouse  for  second- 
hand quotations,  as  Sterne  and  others  have  found  it,  and 
tells  us  that  the  great  part  of  the  books  named  were  pe- 
rused before  the  age  of  fifteen.  Making  allowance  for  the 
fact  that  most  of  the  poet's  autobiographic  sketches  are 
emphatically  '''' Dichtnng  und  Wahrheit,^''  we  can  believe 
that  he  was  an  omnivorous  reader — "I  read  eating,  read 


ii.J  EARLY  YEARS  AXD  SCHOOL  LIFE.  27 

in  bed,  read  when  no  one  else  reads" — and,  having  a  mem- 
ory only  less  retentive  than  Macaulay's,  acquired  so  much 
general  information  as  to  be  suspected  of  picking  it  up 
from  Reviews.  He  himself  declares  that  he  never  read  a 
Review  till  he  was  eighteen  years  old — when  he  himself 
■wrote  one,  utterly  worthless,  on  AYordsworth. 

At  Harrow,  Byron  proved  himself  capable  of  violent 
fits  of  work,  but  of  "few  continuous  drudgeries,"  He 
would  turn  out  an  unusual  number  of  hexameters,  and 
again  lapse  into  as  much  idleness  as  the  teachers  won] 
tolerate.  His  forte  was  in  declamation :  his  attitude  and 
delivery,  and  power  of  extemporizing,  surprised  even  criti- 
cal listeners  into  unguarded  praise.  "  My  qualities,"  he 
savs,  "  were  much  more  oratorical  and  martial  than  poeti- 
cal; no  one  had  the  least  notion  that  I  should  subside  into 
poesy."  Unpopular  at  first,  he  began  to  like  school  when 
he  had  fought  his  way  to  be  a  champion,  and  from  his 
energy  in  sports  more  than  from  the  impression  produced 
by  his  talents  had  come  to  be  recognized  as  a  leader  among 
his  fellows.  Unfortunately,  towards  the  close  of  his  course, 
in  1805,  the  headship  of  Harrow  changed  hands.  Dr. 
Drury  retired,  and  was  succeeded  by  Dr.  Butler.  This 
event  suggested  the  lines  beginning — 

"  Where  are  those  honours,  Ida,  once  your  own, 
When  Probus  fill'd  your  magisterial  throne  ?" 

The  appointment  was  generally  unpopular  among  the  boys, 
whose  sympathies  were  enlisted  in  favour  of  Henry  Drury, 
the  son  of  their  former  master,  and  Dr.  Butler  seems  for 
a  time  to  have  had  considerable  diflficulty  in  maintaining 
discipline.  Byron,  always  "  famous  for  rowing,"  was  a 
ringleader  of  the  rebellious  party,  and  compared  himself 
to  Tyrtseus.     On  one  occasion  he  tore  down  the  window 


28  BYRON.  [chap. 

gratings  in  a  room  of  the  school-house,  with  the  remark 
tliat  tlicy  darkened  the  hall ;  on  another  he  is  reported  to 
have  refused  a  diiinor  invitation  from  the  master,  with  the 
impertinent  remark  that  ho  would  never  think  of  asking 
him  in  return  to  dine  at  Newstead.  On  the  other  hand, 
lie  seems  to  have  set  limits  ta  the  mutiny,  and  prevented 
some  of  the  boys  from  setting  their  desks  on  fire  by  point- 
ing to  their  fathers'  names  carved  on  them.  Byron  after- 
wards expressed  regret  for  his  rudeness ;  but  Butler  re- 
mains in  his  verse  as  "  I'umposus  uf  narrow  brain,  yet  of 
a  narrower  soul." 

Of  the  poet's  free  hours,  during  the  last  years  of  his 
residence,  which  he  refers  to  as  among  the  happiest  of  his 
life,  many  were  spent  in  solitary  musing  by  an  elm-tree, 
near  a  tomb  to  whii'h  his  name  has  been  given — a  spot 
commaiiiliug  a  far  view  of  London,  of  Windsor  "  blos- 
somed high  in  tufted  trees,"  and  of  the  green  fields  that 
stretch  between,  covered  in  spring  with  the  white  and  red 
snow  of  apple  blossom.  The  others  were  devoted  to  the 
society  of  his  chosen  comrades.  Byron,  if  not  one  of  the 
safest,  was  one  of  the  warmest  of  friends,  and  he  plucked  the 
more  eagerly  at  the  choicest  fruit  of  English  public  school 
and  college  life,  from  the  feeling  he  so  pathetically  express- 
es,— 

"  Is  there  no  cause  boyoml  tlio  coiniiion  claim, 

Eiiilear'd  to  all  in  c]iililiioo(i's  vcrv  name? 
All,  sure  some  stronger  impulse  vibrates  here, 
Which  whispers  Friendship  will  iie  doubly  dear 
To  one  w  ho  thus  for  kindred  hearts  must  roam, 
Afid  seek  abroad  tlie  love  denied  at  home. 
Those  hearts,  dear  Ida,  have  I  found  in  thee — 
A  home,  a  world,  a  paradise  to  me." 

Of  his  Harrow  intimates,  the  most  prominent  were  the 
Duke  of  Doiset,  the  poet's  favoured  fag;  Lord  Clare  (the 


II.]  EARLY  YEARS  AND  .SCHOOL  LIFE.  29 

Lycus  of  tlie  Childish  Recollections) ;  Lord  Dclawarr  (the 
Eiiryalus) ;  John  Wingfield  (Alonzo),  who  died  at  Coim- 
bra,  1811;  Cecil  Tattersall  (Davus) ;  Edward  Noel  Long- 
(Cleon)  ;  Wildman,  afterwards  proprietor  of  Newstead ; 
aud  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Of  the  last,  his  form -fellow  and 
most  famous  of  his  mates,  the  story  is  told  of  his  being 
unmercifully  beaten  for  offering  resistance  to  his  fag  mas- 
ter, and  Byron  rushing  up  to  intercede  with  an  offer  to 
take  half  the  blows.  Peel  was  an  exact  contemporary, 
having  been  born  in  the  same  year,  1788.  It  has  been 
remarked  that  most  of  the  poet's  associates  were  his  jun- 
iors, and,  less  fairly,  that  he  liked  to  regard  them  as  his 
satellites.  But  even  at  Dulwioh  his  ostentation  of  rank 
had  provoked  for  him  the  nickname  of  "  the  old  English 
baron."  To  AVildman,  who,  as  a  senior,  had  a  right  of 
inflicting  chastisement  for  offences,  he  said,  "  I  find  you 
have  got  Delawarr  on  your  list ;  pray  don't  lick  him." 
"  Why  not  ?"  was  the  reply.  "  Why,  I  don't  know,  ex- 
cept that  he  is  a  brother  peer."  Again,  he  interfered 
with  the  more  effectual  arm  of  physical  force  to  rescue  a 
junior  protege  —  lame  like  himself,  and  otherwise  much 
weaker — from  the  ill-treatment  of  some  hulking  tyrant. 
"  Harness,"  he  said,  "if  any  one  bullies  you,  tell  me,  and 
I'll  thrash  him  if  I  can  ;"  and  he  kept  his  word.  Harness 
became  an  accomplished  clergyman  and  minor  poet,  and 
has  left  some  pleasing  reminiscences  of  his  former  pa- 
tron. The  prodigy  of  the  school,  George  Sinclair,  was  in 
the  habit  of  writing  the  poet's  exercises,  and  getting  his 
battles  fought  for  him  in  return.  His  bosom  friend  was 
Lord  Clare.  To  him  his  confidences  were  most  freely 
given,  and  his  most  affectionate  verses  addressed.  In  the 
characteristic  stanzas  entitled  "  L'amitie  est  I'amour  sans 
ailes,"  we  feel  as  if  between  them  the  qualifying  phrase 


:!0  BYRON.  [chap. 

mi^lit  liavo  Keen  omitted  ;  for  their  kttors,  carefully  prc- 
stTveil  oil  eitlior  side,  are  a  record  of  the  jealous  coin- 
|)laiuts  and  the  reconciliations  of  lovers.  In  1821  Byron 
uritcs,  "  I  never  hear  the  name  Clare  without  a  beating 
of  the  heart  even  now  ;  and  1  write  it  with  the  feelings  of 
1S03-4-5,  «(/  injinitum.''''  At  the  same  date  he  says  of 
an  accidental  meeting :  "  It  annihilated  for  a  moment  all 
the  years  between  the  present  time  and  the  days  of  Har- 
row. It  was  a  new  and  inexplicable  feeling,  like  a  rising 
from  the  grave  to  me.  Clare  too  was  much  agitated — 
more  in  appearance  than  I  was  myself  —  for  I  could  feel 
his  heart  beat  to  his  fingers'  ends,  unless,  indeed,  it  was 
the  pulse  of  my  own  which  made  me  think  so.  We  were 
but  five  minutes  together  on  the  public  road,  but  I  hardly 
recollect  an  hour  of  my  existence  that  could  be  weighed 
against  them."  They  were  "  all  that  brothers  should  be 
but  the  name  ;''  and  it  is  interesting  to  trace  this  relation- 
ship between  the  greatest  genius  of  the  new  time  and  the 
son  of  the  statesman  who,  in  the  preceding  age,  stands  out 
serene  and  strong  amid  the  swarm  of  turbulent  rioters  and 
ranting  orators  by  whom  he  was  surrounded  and  reviled. 

Before  leaving  Harrow  the  poet  had  passed  through 
the  experience  of  a  passion  of  another  kind,  with  a  result 
that  unha])})ilv  coloured  his  life.  Accounts  differ  as  to 
his  first  meeting  with  Mary  Ann  Chaworth,  the  heiress  of 
the  family  whose  estates  adjoined  his  own,  and  daughter 
of  the  race  that  had  lirld  with  iiis  such  varied  relations. 
In  one  of  his  letters  he  dates  the  introduction  previous  to 
his  trip  to  Cheltenham,  but  it  seems  not  to  have  ripened 
into  intimacy  till  a  later  period.  Byron,  who  had,  in  the 
autumn  of  1802,  visited  his  mother  at  Bath,  joined  in  a 
iiias(iuerade  there,  and  attracted  attention  by  the  liveliness 
of  his  manners.     In  the  following  year  Mrs.  Byron  again 


II.]  EARLY  YEAES  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE.  31 

settled  at  Nottingham,  and  in  the  course  of  a  second  and 
longer  visit  to  lier  he  frequently  passed  the  night  at  the 
Abbey,  of  which  Lord  Grey  de  Ruthven  was  then  a  tem- 
porary tenant.  This  was  the  occasion  of  his  renewing  his 
acquaintance  with  the  Chaworths,  who  invited  him  to  their 
seat  at  x\nnesley.  He  used  at  first  to  return  every  even- 
ing to  Newstead,  giving  the  excuse  that  the  family  pict- 
ures would  come  down  and  take  revenge  on  him  for  his 
grand-uncle's  deed,  a  fancy  repeated  in  the  Siege  of  Cor- 
inth. Latterly  he  consented  to  stay  at  Annesley,  which 
thus  became  his  headquarters  during  the  remainder  of  the 
holidays  of  1803.  The  rest  of  the  six  weeks  were  mainly 
consumed  in  an  excursion  to  Matlock  and  Castleton,  in 
the  same  companionship.  This  short  period,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  prologue  and  epilogue,  embraced  the  whole 
story  of  his  first  real  love.  Byron  was  on  this  occasion 
in  earnest ;  he  wished  to  many  Miss  Chaworth,  an  event 
which,  he  says,  would  have  "  joined  broad  lands,  healed  an 
old  feud,  and  satisfied  at  least  one  heart." 

The  intensity  of  his  passion  is  suggestively  brought  be- 
fore us  in  an  account  of  his  crossing  the  Styx  of  the  Peak 
cavern,  alone  with  the  lady  and  the  Charon  of  the  boat. 
In  the  same  passage  he  informs  us  that  he  had  never  told 
his  love ;  but  that  she  had  discovered — it  is  obvious  that 
she  never  returned — it.  We  have  another  vivid  picture 
of  his  irritation  when  she  was  waltzing  in  his  presence  at 
Matlock ;  then  an  account  of  their  riding  together  in  the 
country  on  their  return  to  the  family  residence  ;  again,  of 
his  bending  over  the  piano  as  she  was  playing  the  Welsh 
air  of  "  Mary  Anne ;"  and,  lastly,  of  his  overhearing  her 
heartless  speech  to  her  maid,  which  first  opened  his  eyes 
to  the  real  state  of  affairs — "  Do  you  think  I  could  care 
for  that  lame  boy  ?" — upon  which  he  rushed  out  of  the 


82  BYRON.  [chap. 

liousc,  and  ran,  like  a  hunted  creature,  to  Newstcad. 
Tlicncc  lie  shortly  returned  from  the  rougher  sehool  of 
life  to  hi.s  haunts  and  task.s  at  Harrow,  A  year  later  the 
pair  again  met  to  take  farewell,  on  the  hill  of  Annesley — 
an  incident  he  has  commemorated  in  two  short  stanza.s, 
that  have  the  sound  of  a  wind  moaning  over  a  moor.  "  I 
suppose,"  he  said,  "  the  ne.\t  lime  I  see  you,  you  will  be 
Mrs,  Chaworth  ?"  "  I  hope  so,"  she  replied  (her  betrothed, 
Mr.  Musters,  had  agreed  to  assume  her  family  name). 
The  announcement  of  her  marriage,  which  took  place  in 
August,  1805,  was  made  to  him  by  his  mother,  with  the 
remark,  "  I  have  some  news  for  you.  Take  out  your 
haiulkerchief ;  you  will  require  it."  On  hearing  what  she 
had  to  say,  with  forced  calm  he  turned  the  conversation  to 
other  subjects  ;  but  he  was  long  haunted  by  a  loss  which 
lie  has  made  the  theme  of  many  of  his  verses.  In  1807 
he  sent  to  the  lady  herself  the  lines  beirinnintr — 

"0  had  my  fate  been  joined  with  tiiiiic." 

In  the  following  year  he  accepted  an  invitation  to  dine 
at  Annesley,  and  was  visibly  afifected  by  the  sight  of  the 
infant  daughter  of  Mrs.  Chaworth,  to  whom  he  addressed  a 
toucliing  congratulation.  Shortly  afterwards,  when  about 
to  leave  England  for  the  first  time,  he  finally  addressed 
her  in  the  stanzas — 

"  'Tis  done,  and  .'shivering  in  the  Rale, 
The  biirk  unfurls  her  snowy  sail." 

Some  years  later,  having  an  opportunity  of  revisiting  the 
family  of  his  successful  rival,  Mrs.  Leigh  dissuaded  him. 
"  Don't  go,"  she  said,  "  for  if  you  do  you  will  certainly 
fall  in  love  again,  and  there  will  be  a  scene."  The  ro- 
mance of  the   story  onlininates  in  the  famous  Dream,  a 


II.]  EARLY  YEARS  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE.  33 

poem  of  unequal  merit,  but  containing  passages  of  real 
pathos,  written  in  the  year  1816  at  Diodati,  as  we  are 
told,  araid  a  flood  of  tears. 

Miss  Chaworth's  attractions,  beyond  those  of  personal 
beauty,  seem  to  have  been  mainly  due — a  common  occur- 
rence—  to  the  poet's  imagination.  A  young  lady,  two 
years  his  senior,  of  a  lively  and  volatile  temper,  she  enjoy- 
ed the  stolen  interviews  at  the  gate  between  the  grounds, 
and  laughed  at  the  ardent  letters,  passed  through  a  confi- 
dant, of  the  still  awkward  youth  whom  she  regarded  as  a 
boy.  She  had  no  intuition  to  divine  the  presence,  or  ap- 
preciate the  worship,  of  one  of  the  future  master-minds  of 
England,  nor  any  ambition  to  ally  herself  with  the  wild 
race  of  Newstead,  and  preferred  her  hale,  commonplace, 
fox-hunting  squire,  "  She  was  the  beau  ideal,"  says  By- 
ron, in  his  first  accurate  prose  account  of  the  affair,  writ- 
ten 1823,  a  few  days  before  his  departure  for  Greece, 
"  of  all  that  my  youthful  fancy  could  paint  of  beautiful. 
And  I  have  taken  all  my  fables  about  the  celestial  nature 
of  women  from  the  perfection  my  imagination  created  in 
her.  I  say  created ;  for  I  found  her,  like  the  rest  of  the 
sex,  anything  but  angelic." 

Mrs.  Musters  (her  husband  re-asserted  his  right  to  his 
own  name)  had  in  the  long-run  reason  to  regret  her  choice. 
The  ill-assorted  pair,  after  some  unhappy  years,  resolved 
on  separation;  and  falling  into  bad  health  and  worse  spir- 
its, the  "  bright  morning  star  of  Annesley  "  passed  under 
a  cloud  of  mental  darkness.  She  died,  in  1832,  of  fright 
caused  by  a  Nottingham  riot.  On  the  decease  of  Musters, 
in  1850,  every  relic  of  her  ancient  family  was  sold  by 
auction  and  scattered  to  the  winds. 


CHAPTER  III. 

CAMBRIDGE,   AXD    FIRST    PERIOD    OF    AUTIIORSIIIP. 

>1n  October,  1805,  on  tlic  advice  of  Dr.  Drurv,  Byron  was 
removed  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  kept  up  a 
connexion  with  the  University  for  less  than  three  years  of 
very  irregular  attendance,  during  wliich  we  hear  nothing 
of  his  studies,  except  tlie  contempt  for  them  expressed  in 
some  of  the  least  effective  passages  of  his  early  satires, 
lie  came  into  rosidonco  in  bad  temper  and  low  spirits. 
His  attachment  to  Harrow  characteristically  redoubled  as 
the  time  drew  near  to  leave  it,  and  his  rest  was  broken 
"for  the  last  quarter,  with  counting  the  hours  that  re- 
mained." He  was  about  to  start  by  himself,  with  the 
heavy  feeling  that  he  was  no  longer  a  boy,  and  yet  against 
his  choice,  for  he  wished  to  go  to  Oxford.  The  Hours  of 
Idleness,  the  product  of  this  period,  are  fairly  named.  He 
was  so  idle  as  regards  "  problems  mathcmatic,"  and  "  bar- 
barous Latin,"  that  it  is  matter  of  surprise  to  learn 
that  he  was  able  to  take  his  degree,  as  he  did,  in  March, 
1808. 

A  good  German  critic,  dwelling  on  the  comparatively 
narrow  range  of  studies  to  which  the  energies  of  Cam- 
bridge were  then  mainly  directed,  adds,  somewhat  rashly, 
that  Englisli  national  literature  stands  for  the  most  part 
beyond  the  range  of  the  academic  circle.  This  statement 
is   often  reiterated   with   persistent   inaccuracy;   but  tho 


CHAP.  III.]  CAMBRIDGE.  35 

most  casual  reference  to  biography  informs  us  tliat  at  least 
four-fifths  of  the  leading  statesmen,  reformers,  and  philos- 
ophers of  England  have  been  nurtured  within  the  walls  of 
her  universities,  and  cherished  a  portion  of  their  spirit. 
From  them  have  sprung  the  intellectual  fires  that  have,  at 
every  crisis  of  our  history,  kindled  the  nation  into  a  new 
life ;  from  the  age  of  WycliSe,  through  those  of  Latimer, 
Locke,  Gibbon,  Macaulay,  to  the  present  reign  of  the 
Physicists,  comparatively  few  of  the  motors  of  their  age 
have  been  wholly  "  without  the  academic  circle."  Ana- 
lysing with  the  same  view  the  lives  of  the  British  poets  of 
real  note  from  Barbour  to  Tennyson,  we  find  the  propor- 
tion of  L'niversity  men  increases.  "  Poeta  nascitur  et  fit ;" 
and  if  the  demands  of  technical  routine  have  sometimes 
tended  to  stifle  the  comparative  repose  of  a  seclusion 
"unravaged"  by  the  fierce  activities  around  it,  the  habit 
of  dwelling  on  the  old  wisdom  and  harping  on  the  an- 
cient strings,  is  calculated  to  foster  the  poetic  temper  and 
enrich  its  resources.  The  discouraging  effect  of  a  some- 
times supercilious  and  conservative  criticism  is  not  an  un- 
mixed evil.  The  verse-writer  who  can  be  snuffed  out  by 
the  cavils  of  a  tutorial  drone  is  a  poetaster  silenced  for 
his  country's  good.  It  is  true,  however,  that  to  original 
minds,  bubbling  with  spontaneity,  or  arrogant  with  the 
consciousness  of  power,  the  discipline  is  hard,  and  the  re- 
straint excessive ;  and  that  the  men  whom  their  colleges 
are  most  proud  to  remember,  have  handled  them  severely. 
Bacon  inveighs  against  the  scholastic  trifling  of  his  day ; 
Milton  talks  of  the  waste  of  time  on  litigious  brawling; 
Locke  mocks  at  the  logic  of  the  schools ;  Cowley  com- 
plains of  being  taught  words,  not  things ;  Gibbon  rejoices 
over  his  escape  from  the  port  and  prejudice  of  Magdalen ; 
Wordsworth  contemns  the  "  trade  in  classic  niceties,"  and 


"ti  BYRON.  [.iiAi-. 

vuves  "in  inagisteriiil  liltcrty"  l>y  the  Cam,  as  afterwards 
aiiioiio;  tlie  IiilLs. 

lint  all  those  liostile  critics  owe  much  to  the  object  of 
their  animadversion.  Any  schoolboy  can  refer  the  prefer- 
ence of  Lii,fht  to  Fruit  in  the  Kovinn  Orr/anum,  half  of 
Comns  and  Lycidas,  the  stately  periods  of  the  Decline  and 
Fall,  and  tlie  severe  beauties  of  Laodamia,  to  the  better 
influences  of  academic  trainint^  on  the  minds  of  their  au- 
thors. Similarly,  tlic  richest  pages  of  IJyron's  work — from 
the  date  of  The  Curse  of  Minerva  to  that  of  the  "  Isles  of 
Greece" — are  brightened  by  lights  and  adorned  by  allu- 
sions due  to  his  training,  imperfect  as  it  was,  on  tiie  slopes 
of  Uarrow,  and  the  associations  fostered  during  his  truant 
years  by  the  sluggish  stream  of  liis  "Injusta  noverca."  At 
her,  however,  he  continued  to  rail  as  late  as  the  publication 
of  Bcppo,  in  the  Toth  and  7Gth  stanzas  of  which  we  find 
another  cause  of  complaint — 

"  One  Lates  an  iiiithor  tliat's  all  author,  fellows 
In  foolscap  uniforras  tiirn'd  up  with  ink — 
So  very  anxious,  clever,  fine,  and  jealous, 

One  don't  know  what  to  say  to  them,  or  tliiuk." 

Then,  after  ooninicnding  Scott,  Rogers,  and  Moore  for  be- 
ing men  of  the  world,  he  proceeds: — 

"  But  for  tlio  cliililreu  of  the  '  mighty  mothers,' 
The  wouUl-be  wits  and  can't-be  gentlemen, 
I  leave  them  to  the  daily  '  Tea  is  ready,' 
Snug  coterie,  and  literary  lady." 

This  attack,  which  called  forth  a  counter-invective  of 
unusual  ferocity  from  some  unknown  scribbler,  is  the  ox- 
])ression  of  a  sentiment  which,  sound  enough  within  limits, 
I>yron  pushed  to  an  extreme.  He  liad  a  rooted  dislike  of 
professional  litterateurs,  and  was  always  haunted  by  a  dread 


ui,]  CAMBRIDGE.  37 

that  the}'  would  claim  equality  with  him  ou  the  common 
ground  of  authorship.  He  aspired  through  life  to  the 
superiority  of  a  double  distinction — that  of  a  peer  among 
poets,  and  a  poet  among*  peers.  In  this  same  spirit  he  re- 
sented the  comparison  frequently  made  between  him  and 
Rousseau,  and  insisted  on  points  of  contrast.  "  He  had  a 
bad  memory— I  a  good  one.  He  was  of  the  people — I  of 
the  aristocracy."  Byron  was  capable  of  unbending  where 
the  difference  of  rank  was  so  great  that  it  could  not  be 
ignored.  On  this  principle  we  may  explain  his  enthusi- 
astic regard  for  the  chorister  Eddlestone,  from  whom  he 
received  the  cornelian  that  is  the  theme  of  some  of  his 
verses,  and  whose  untimely  death  in  1811  he  sincerely 
mourned. 

Of  bis  Harrow  friends,  Harness  and  Long  in  due  course 
followed  him  to  Cambridge,  where  their  common  pursuits 
were  renewed.  With  the  latter — who  was  drowned  in  1809, 
on  a  passage  to  Lisbon  with  his  regiment  —  he  spent  a 
considerable  portion  of  his  time  on  the  Cam,  swdramiug 
and  diving,  in  which  art  they  were  so  expert  as  to  pick  up 
eggs,  plates,  thimbles,  and  coins  from  a  depth  of  fourteen 
feet — incidents  recalled  to  the  poet's  mind  by  reading  Mil- 
ton's invocation  to  Sabrina.  During  the  same  period  he 
distinguished  himself  at  cricket,  as  in  boxing,  riding,  and 
shooting.  Of  his  skill  as  a  rider  there  are  various  accounts. 
He  was  an  undoubted  marksman,  and  his  habit  of  carrHng 
about  pistols,  and  use  of  them  wherever  he  went,  was  often 
a  source  of  annoyance  and  alarm.  He  professed  a  theo- 
retical objection  to  duelling,  but  was  as  ready  to  take  a 
challenge  as  Scott,  and  more  ready  to  send  one. 

Regarding  the  masters  and  professors  of  Cambridge, 
Byron  has  Uttle  to  say.  His  own  tutor,  Tavell,  appears 
pleasantly  enough  in  his  verse,  and  he  commends  the  head 


38  BVRU.V.  [cUAP. 

of  his  oolleG;o,  Dr.  Lort  Maiiscl,  for  dignified  demeanour  in 
liis  otlioo  and  a  past  rcputaliun  for  convivial  wit.  His  at- 
tentions to  I'rofossor  Hailstone  at  Harrowgate  were  gra- 
ciously offeri'd  and  received ;  but  in  a  letter  to  Murray  he 
gives  a  gra[)liieally  abusive  account  of  I'orson,  "hiocu|)ing 
(Jreck  like  a  Helot"  in  his  cups.  The  poet  was  first  intro- 
duced at  Cambridge  to  a  brilliant  circle  of  contemporaries, 
whose  talents  or  attainments  soon  made  them  more  or  less 
eonsj)icuous,  and  most  of  whom  are  interesting  on  their 
own  account  as  well  as  from  their  connexion  with  the  sub- 
sequent phases  of  his  career.  By  common  consent  Charles 
Skinner  Matthews,  son  of  the  member  for  Herefordshire, 
1  802-G,  was  the  most  remarkable  of  the  group.  Distin- 
guished alike  for  scholarship,  physical  and  mental  courage, 
subtlety  of  thought,  humour  of  fancy,  and  fascinations  of 
character,  this  young  man  seems  to  have  made  an  impres- 
sion on  the  undergraduates  of  his  own,  similar  to  that  left 
by  Charles  Austin  on  those  of  a  later  generation.  The 
loss  of  this  friend  Byron  always  regarded  as  an  incalcula- 
ble calamity.  In  a  note  to  Childe  Harold  he  writes :  "  I 
should  have  ventured  on  a  verse  to  the  memory  of  Mat- 
thews, were  he  not  too  much  above  all  praise  of  mine.  His 
powers  of  mind  shown  in  the  attainment  of  greater  hon- 
ours, against  the  ablest  candidates,  than  those  of  any  grad- 
uate on  record  at  Cambridge,  have  suftlciently  established 
his  fame  on  the  spot  where  it  was  acquired ;  while  his 
softer  qualities  live-  in  the  recollection  of  friends  who  loved 
him  too  well  to  envy  his  superiority."  He  was  drowned 
when  bathing  alone  among  the  reeds  of  the  Cani,  in  the 
summer  of  1811. 

In  a  letter  written  from  Ravenna  in  1820,  Byron,  in  an- 
swer to  a  request  for  contributions  to  a  proposed  memoir, 
introduces  into  his  notes  uuirji  aulnbiographical   matter. 


III.]  CAMBRIDGE.  89 

In  reference  to  a  joint  visit  to  Newstead  he  writes :  "  Mat- 
thews and  myself  had  travelled  down  from  London  to- 
gether, talking  all  the  way  incessantly  upon  one  single 
topic.  When  we  got  to  Loughborough,  I  know  not  what 
chasm  had  made  us  diverge  for  a  moment  to  sonic  other 
subject,  at  which  he  was  indignant.  '  Come,'  said  he, '  don't 
let  us  break  through ;  let  us  go  on  as  we  began,  to  our 
journey's  end  ;'  and  so  he  continued,  and  was  as  entertain- 
ing as  ever  to  the  very  end.  lie  had  previously  occupied, 
during  my  year's  absence  from  Cambridge,  my  rooms  in 
Trinity,  with  the  furniture;  and  Jones  (the  gyp),  in  his 
odd  way,  had  said,  in  putting  him  in, '  Mr.  Matthews,  I  rec- 
ommend to  your  attention  not  to  damage  any  of  the  mov- 
ables, for  Lord  Byron,  sir,  is  a  young  man  of  tiumiltuous 
jxissions.^  Matthews  was  delighted  with  this,  and  when- 
ever anybody  came  to  visit  him,  begged  them  to  handle 
the  very  door  with  caution,  and  used  to  repeat  Jones's  ad- 
monition in  his  tone  and  manner.  .  .  .  He  had  the  same 
droll  sardonic  way  about  everything.  A  wild  Irishman, 
named  R,  one  evening  beginning  to  say  something  at  a 
large  supper,  Matthews  roared,  '  Silence  !'  and  then,  point- 
ing to  F.,  cried  out,  in  the  words  of  the  oracle, '  Orson  is 
endowed  with  reason.'  When  Sir  Henry  Smith  was  ex- 
pelled from  Cambridge  for  a  row  with  a  tradesman  named 
'  Hiron,'  Matthews  solaced  himself  with  shouting  under 
Hiron's  windows  every  evening — 

'Ah  me!  what  perils  do  environ 
The  man  who  meddles  with  hot  Hiron !' 

He  was  also  of  that  band  of  scoffers  who  used  to  rouse 
Lort  Mansel  from  his  slumbers  in  the  lodge  of  Trinity ; 
and  when  he  appeared  at  the  window,  foaming  with  wrath, 
and  crying  out, '  I  know  you,  gentlemen — I  know  you  I' 


40  BYRON.  [<iiAP. 

were  wont  to  reply, '  Wc  bcscocli  tlioc  to  hoar  us,  good 
Lort.     Good  Lort,  deliver  us  I'  " 

The  whole  Icttor,  written  in  the  poet's  mature  and  nat- 
ural style,  gives  a  vi\  id  iiidure  of  the  social  life  and  sur- 
roundings of  liis  Cimibridge  day.?:  liow  much  of  the  set 
and  sententious  moralizing  of  some  of  his  formal  biogra- 
phers might  we  not  have  spared,  for  a  report  of  the  con- 
versation on  the  road  from  London  to  Xewstead.  Of  the 
others  gathered  round  the  same  centre,  Scrope  Davies  en- 
listed the  largest  share  of  Byron's  affections.  To  him  he 
wrote  after  the  catastrophe :  "  Come  to  me,  Scrope ;  I 
am  almost  desolate- — left  alone  in  the  world.  I  had  but 
yon,  and  11.,  and  M.,  and  let  me  enjoy  the  survivors  while 
I  can."  Later  he  says,  "  Matthews,  Davies,  llobhouse,  and 
myself  formed  a  coterie  of  our  own.  Davies  has  always 
beaten  us  ail  in  the  war  of  words,  and  by  colloquial  powers 
at  once  delighted  and  kept  us  in  order;  even  M.  yielded 
to  the  dasliing  vivacity  of  S.  D."  The  last  is  everywhere 
commended  for  the  brilliancy  of  his  wit  and  repartee:  he 
was  never  afraid  to  speak  the  truth.  Once  when  the  poet, 
in  one  of  his  fits  of  petulance,  exclaimed,  intending  to 
produce  a  terrible  impression,"!  shall  go  7warf/"  Davies 
calmly  and  cuttingly  observed,  "  It  is  much  more  like  silli- 
ness than  madness  I"  He  was  the  only  man  who  ever 
laid  Byron  under  any  serious  pecuniary  obligation,  liaving 
lent  him  4800/.  in  some  time  of  strait.  This  was  repaid 
on  March  27,  1814,  when  tlie  pair  sat  up  over  champagne 
and  claret  from  six  till  midnight,  after  which  "Scrope 
could  not  be  got  into  the  carriage  on  the  way  liome,  but 
remained  tipsy  and  pious  on  his  knees,"  Davies  was 
much  disconcerted  at  the  influence  which  the  sceptical 
opinions  of  Matthews  threatened  to  exercise  over  Byron's 
mind.     The  fourth  of  this  quadrangle  of  amity  was  John 


III.]  CAMBRIDGE.  41 

Cam  Hobhouse,  afterwards  Lord  Broughton,  the  steadfast 
friend  of  the  poet's  whole  life,  the  companion  of  his  travels, 
the  witness  of  his  marriage,  the  executor  of  his  will,  the 
zealous  guardian  and  vindicator  of  his  fame.  His  ability 
is  abundantly  attested  by  the  impression  he  left  on  his 
contemporaries,  his  published  description  of  the  Pilgrimage, 
and  subsequent  literary  and  political  career.  Byron  bears 
witness  to  the  warmtli  of  his  affections  and  the  charms  of 
his  conversation,  and  to  the  candour  which,  as  he  confess- 
ed to  Lady  Blessington,  sometimes  tried  his  patience. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  they  had  some  misunderstanding 
when  travelling  together,  but  it  was  a  passing  cloud. 
Eighteen  months  after  his  return  the  poet  admits  that 
Hobhouse  was  his  best  friend  ;  and  when  he  unexpectedly 
walked  up  the  stairs  of  the  Palazzo  Lanfranchi,  at  Pisa, 
Madame  Guiccioli  informs  us  that  Byron  was  seized  with 
such  violent  emotion,  and  so  extreme  an  excess  of  joy,  that 
it  seemed  to  take  away  his  strength,  and  he  was  forced  to 
sit  down  in  tears. 

On  the  edge  of  this  inner  circle,  and  in  many  respects 
associated  with  it,  was  the  Rev.  Francis  Hodgson,  a  ripe 
scholar,  good  translator,  a  sound  critic,  a  fluent  writer  of 
graceful  verse,  and  a  large-hearted  divine,  whose  corre- 
spondence, recently  edited  with  a  connecting  narrative  by 
his  son,  has  thrown  light  on  disputed  passages  of  Lord 
Byron's  life.  The  views  entertained  by  the  friends  on 
literary  matters  were  almost  identical ;  they  both  fought 
under  the  standards  of  the  classic  school ;  they  resented 
the  same  criticisms,  they  applauded  the  same  successes, 
and  were  bound  together  by  the  strong  tie  of  mutual  ad- 
miration. Byron  commends  Hodgson's  verses,  and  en- 
courages him  to  write ;  Hodgson  recognizes  in  the  Bards 
and  Eevieivers  and  the  earlv  cantos  of  Childe  Harold  the 


43  IJYKUX.  [cUAP. 

promise  of  Manfred  and  Cain.  Among  the  associates 
who  strove  to  brint:;  the  poet  back  to  the  anchorai^e  of 
fixed  belief,  and  to  wean  him  from  tlie  error  of  his  thoughts, 
Francis  Hodgson  was  the  most  charitable,  and  therefore 
the  most  judicious.  That  his  cautions  and  exhortations 
were  never  stultilied  by  pedantry  or  excessive  dogmatism, 
is  apparent  from  the  frank  and  unguarded  answers  which 
they  called  forth.  In  several,  which  arc  preserved,  and 
some  for  the  first  time  reproduced  in  the  recently-publish- 
ed Memoir,  we  are  struck  by  the  mixture  of  audacity  and 
superficial  dogmatism,  sometimes  amounting  to  effrontery, 
that  is  apt  to  characterize  the  negations  of  a  youthful  scep- 
1^.  In  September,  1811,  Byron  writes  from  Newstead : 
iri--\vill  have  nothing  to  do  with  your  immortality;  wc 
hrc  miserable  enough  in  this  life,  without  the  absurdity  of 
s^iiC'ciilating  upon  another.  Christ  came  to  save  men,  but 
a  good  I'agan  will  go  to  heaven,  and  a  bad  Xazarene  to 
licll.  I  am  no  Platonist,  I  am  nothing  at  all ;  but  I  would 
sooner  be  a  Patilician,  Manichean,  Spinozist,  (ientile,  Pyr- 
rlionian,  Zoroastrian,  than  one  of  the  seventy-two  villainous 
sects  who  are  tearing  each  other  to  pieces  for  the  love  of 
tlie  Lord  and  hatred  of  each  other.  I  will  bring  ten 
Mussulincn,  shall  shame  you  all  in  good-will  towards  men 
and  prayer  to  God."  On  a  similar  outburst  in  verse,  the 
Rev.  F.  Jlodgson  comments  with  a  sweet  liumanity,  "The 
poor  dear  soul  meant  nothing  of  this."  Elsewhere  the 
poet  writes,  "  I  have  read  Watson  to  Gibbon.  lie  proves 
nothing;  so  I  am  where  I  was,  verging  towards  Spinoza; 
and  yet  it  is  a  gloomy  creed ;  and  I  want  a  better ;  but 
there  is  something  pagan  in  me  that  I  cannot  shake  off. 
In  short,  J  deny  nothing,  but  doubt  everything.''''  But  his 
early  attitude  on  matters  of  religion  is  best  set  forth  in  a 
letter  to  Gifford,  of  1813,  in  which  lie  says,  "  I  am  no  bigot 


III.]  CAMBRIDGE.  43 

to  infidelity,  and  did  not  expect  tliat,  because  I  doubted 
the  immortality  of  man,  I  should  be  charged  with  denying- 
the  existence  of  a  God.  It  was  the  comparative  insig- 
nificance of  ourselves  and  our  world,  when  placed  in  com- 
parison of  the  mighty  whole  of  which  man  is  an  atom, 
that  first  led  me  to  imagine  that  our  pretensions  to  eterni- 
ty might  be  overrated.  This,  and  being  early  disgusted 
with  a  Calvinistic  Scotch  school,  where  I  was  cudgelled  to 
church  for  the  first  ten  years  of  my  life,  afllicted  me  with 
this  malady  ;  for,  after  all,  it  is,  I  believe,  a  disease  of  the 
mind,  as  much  as  other  kinds  of  hypochondria." 

Hodgson  was  a  type  of  friendly  forbearance  and  loyal 
attachment,  which  had  for  their  return  a  perfect  open- 
heartedness  in  his  correspondent.  To  no  one  did  the  poet 
more  freely  abuse  himself ;  to  no  one  did  he  indulge  in 
more  reckless  sallies  of  humour;  to  no  one  did  he  more 
readily  betray  his  little  conceits.  From  him  Byron  sought 
and  received  advice,  and  he  owed  to  him  the  prevention 
of  what  might  have  been  a  most  foolish  and  disastrous 
encounter.  On  the  other  hand,  the  clergyman  was  the 
recipient  of  one  of  the  poet's  many  single-hearted  acts  of 
munificence — a  gift  of  lOOOA,  to  pay  oif  debts  to  which 
he  had  been  left  heir.  In  a  letter  to  his  uncle,  the  former 
gratefully  alludes  to  this  generosity :  "  Oh,  if  you  knew 
the  exultation  of  heart,  aye,  and  of  head  too,  I  feel  at  being 
free  from  those  depressing  embarrassments,  you  would,  as 
I  do,  bless  my  dearest  friend  and  brother,  Byron,"  The 
whole  transaction  is  a  pleasing  record  of  a  benefit  that  w^as 
neither  sooner  nor  later  resented  by  the  receiver. 

Among  other  associates  of  the  same  group  should  be 
mentioned  Henry  Drury — long  Hodgson's  intimate  friend, 
and  ultimately  his  brother-in-law,  to  whom  many  of 
Byron's  first  series  of  letters  from  abroad  are  addressed — 


% 


\ 


4-4  BYIIOX.  [ghap. 

ami  Robert  Charles  Dallas,  a  name  surrounded  with  various 
associations,  who  played  a  not  iiisiirnificant  part  in  Byron's 
history,  and,  after  his  death,  helped  to  swell  the  throng  of 
his  annotators.  This  gentleman,  a  connexion  by  marriage, 
and  author  of  some  now  forgotten  novels,  first  made  ac- 
(]uaintanoe  with  the  poet  in  London  early  in  1808,  when 
we  have  two  letters  from  Byron,  in  answer  to  some  com- 
pliment on  his  early  volume,  in  which,  though  addressing 
liis  correspondent  merely  as  "Sir,"  his  flippancy  and  habit 
of  boasting  of  excessive  badness  reach  an  absurd  climax. 

Meanwhile,  during  the  intervals  of  his  attendance  at  col- 
lege, Byron  had  made  other  friends.  His  vacations  were 
divided  between  London  and  Southwell,  a  small  town  on 
the  road  from  Mansfield  and  Newark,  once  a  refuge  of 
Charles  L,  and  still  adorned  by  an  old  Norman  minster. 
Here  Mrs.  Byron  for  several  summer  seasons  took  up  her 
abode,  and  was  frequently  joined  by  her  son.  He  was  in- 
troduced to  John  Pigot,  a  medical  student  of  Edinburgh, 
and  his  sister  Elizabeth,  both  endowed  with  talents  above 
the  average,  and  keenly  interested  in  literary  pursuits,  to 
whom  a  number  of  his  letters  are  addressed;  also  to  the 
Rev.  J.  T.  Becher,  author  of  a  treatise  on  the  state  of  the 
poor,  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  encouragement  and 
counsel.  The  poet  often  rails  at  the  place,  which  he 
found  dull  in  comparison  with  Cambridge  and  London  ; 
writing  from  the  latter,  in  1807:  "O  Southwell,  how  I 
rejoice  to  have  left  thee !  and  how  I  curse  the  heavy  hours 
I  dragged  along  for  so  many  months  among  the  Mohawks 
who  inhabit  your  kraals !"  and  adding  that  his  sole  satis- 
faction during  his  residence  there  was  having  pared  off 
some  pounds  of  flesh.  Notwithstanding,  in  the  small  but 
select  society  of  this  inland  watering-place  he  passed,  on 
till'  whole,  a  ])l('asant  time — listening  to  the  music  of  the 


iii.j       CAMBRIDGE— FIRST  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.        45 

sirajile  ballads  in  wliich  be  delighted,  taking-  part  in  the 
performances  of  the  local  theatre,  making  excursions,  and 
writing  verses.  This  otherwise  quiet  time  was  disturbed 
by  exhibitions  of  violence  on  the  part  of  Mrs.  Byron, 
which  suggest  Jhe  idea  of  insanity.  After  one  more  out- 
rageous than  usual,  both  mother  and  son  are  said  to  have 
gone  to  the  neighbouring  apothecary,  each  to  request  him 
not  to  supply  the  other  with  poison.  On  a  later  occasion, 
when  he  had  been  meeting  her  bursts  of  rage  with  stub- 
born mockery,  she  flung  a  poker  at  his  head,  and  narrowly 
missed  her  aim.  Upon  this  he  took  flight  to  London,  and 
his  Hydra  or  x\lecto,  as  he  calls  her,  followed  :  on  their 
meeting,  a  truce  was  patched,  and  they  withdrew  in  oppo- 
site directions,  she  back  to  Southwell,  he  to  refresh  him- 
self on  the  Sussex  coast,  till  in  the  August  of  the  same 
year  (1806)  he  again  rejoined  her.  Shoilly  afterwards  we 
have  from  Pigot  a  description  of  a  trip  to  Ilarrowgate, 
when  his  lordship's  favourite  Newfoundland,  Boatswain, 
w^hose  relation  to  his  master  recalls  that  of  Bounce  to 
Pope,  or  Maida  to  Scott,  sat  on  the  box. 

In  November  Byron  printed  for  private  circulation  the 
first  issue  of  his  juvenile  poems.  Mr.  Becher  bavin o-  call- 
ed his  attention  to  one  which  he  thought  objectionable, 
the  impression  was  destroyed ;  and  the  author  set  to  work 
upon  another,  which,  at  once  weeded  and  amplified,  saw 
the  light  in  Januar}',  1807.  He  sent  copies,  under  the 
title  of  Jiivemlia,  to  several  of  his  friends,  and  among  oth- 
ers to  Henry  Mackenzie  (the  Man  of  Feeling),  and  to 
Fraser  Tytler,  Lord  Woodhouselee.  Encouraged  by  their 
favourable  notices,  he  determined  to  appeal  to  a  wider  au- 
dience, and  in  March,  1807,  the  Hours  of  Idleness,  still 
proceeding  from  the  local  press  at  Newark,  were  given  to 


•1(1  nVKoN.  [(II AP. 

the  worlil.  In  .lime  wo  lind  the  poet  again  writing  from 
liis  coiloge  rooms,  dwelling  with  liDjish  detail  on  his 
growth  in  height  and  reduction  in  girth,  his  late  hours 
and  heavy  potations,  his  comrades,  and  the  prospects  of 
his  book.  From  July  to  September  he  dates  from  Lon- 
don, excited  by  the  praises  of  some  now  obscure  magazine, 
and  planning  a  journey  to  the  Hebrides.  In  October  he  is 
again  settled  at  Cambridge,  and  in  a  letter  to  Miss  Pig- 
ot,  makes  a^umorous  reference  to  one  of  his  fantastic 
freaks  :-^i-r4«iv<*got  a  new  friend,  the  finest  in  the  world 
N— a  tame  bear.  AVhen  I  brt^iight  liim  here,  they  asked  mc 
■what  I  meant  to  do  with  him,  and  my  reply  was,  '  lie 
shoiud  iut  for  a  fellowslui).'  This  answer  delighted  them 
not."  T1k>  greater  jrat  of  the  spring  and  summer  of 
1808  was  spent  at  Dorant's  IIi)!el,  Albemarle  Street.  Left 
to  himself,  he  seems  during  this  period  for  the  first  time 
to  liave  freely  indulged  in  dissipations,  which  are  in  most 
lives  more  or  less  carefully  concealed.  But  Byron,  with 
almost  unparalleled  folly,  was  perpetually  taking  the  public 
into  his  confidence,  and  all  his  "sins  of  blood,"  with  the 
strange  additions  of  an  imaginative  effrontery,  have  been 
thrust  before  us  in  a  manner  which  even  Tlioophile  Gau- 
tier  might  have  thought  indelicate.  Nature  and  circum- 
stances conspired  to  the  result.  With  passions  which  lie 
ond  of  comparing  to  the  fires  of  Vesuvius  and  llecla, 
lie  was,  on  his  entrance  into  a  social  life  which  his  rank 
helped  to  surround  with  temptations,  unconscious  of  any 
sufficient  motive  for  resisting  them  ;  he  had  no  one  to  re- 
strain '  im  from  the  whim  of  the  moment,  or  with  suf- 
J'yf>'''  hority  to  give  him  effective  advice.     A  tempera- 

\  nieral   despondency,  relieved  by   reckless  out- 

lal  spirits,  is  the  least  favourable  to  habitual 


III.]       CAMBRIDGE— FIRST  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.         47 

self-coDtrol.  The  melancholy  of  Byron  was  not  of  the 
pensive  and  innocent  kind  attributed  to  Cowley,  rather 
that  of  the  fxeXayxo^ii^oi  of  whom  Aristotle  asserts,  with 
profound  psychological  or  physiological  intuition,  that 
they  are  ael  kv  (rfolpa  opi^ei.  The  absurdity  of  Mr. 
Moore's  frequent  declaration,  that  all  great  poets  are  inly 
wrapt  in  perpetual  gloom,  is  only  to  be  excused  by  the 
modesty  which,  in  the  saying  so,  obviously  excludes  him- 
self from  the  list.  But  it  is  true  that  anomalous  energies 
are  sources  of  incessant  irritation  to  their  possessor,  unti. 
they  have  found  their  proper  vent  in  the  free  exercise  of 
his  highest  faculties.  Byron  bad  not  yet  done  this,  when 
he  was  rushing  about  between  London,  Brighton,  Cam- 
bridge, and  Xewstead — .shooting,  gambling,  swimming,  al- 
ternately drinking  deep  and  trying  to  starve  himself  into 
elegance,  green -room  hunting,  travelling  with  disguised 
companions,'  patronizing  D'Egville  the  dancing- master, 
Grimaldi  the  clown,  and  taking  lessons  from  Mr.  Jackson, 
the  distinguished  professor  of  pugilism,  to  whom  he  after- 
wards affectionately  refers  as  his  "  old  friend  and  corporeal 
pastor  and  master."  There  is  no  inducement  to  dwell  on 
amours  devoid  of  romance,  further  than  to  remember 
that  they  never  trenched  on  w^hat  the  common  code  of 
the  fashionable  world  terms  dishonour.  We  may  believe 
the  poet's  later  assertion,  backed  by  want  of  evidence  to 
the  contrary,  that  be  had  never  been  the  first  means  of 
leading  any  one  astray — a  fact  perhaps  worthy  the  atten- 

'  In  reference  to  one  of  these,  see  an  interesting  letter  from  Mr. 
Minto  to  the  Athenceum  in  the  year  1876,  in  which,  with  considera- 
ble though  not  conclusive  ingenuity,  he  endeavours  to  identify  the 
girl  with  "  Thyrza "  and  with  "  Astarte,"  whom  he  regards  as  the 
same  person. 


48  liVHO.V.  [chap. 

tion  of  tliose  moral  worshippers  of  Oootlic  and  liiinis  who 
liiss  at  Lord  Byron's  name. 

Though  much  of  this  year  of  liis  life  was  passed  unprof- 
itabiy,  from  it  dates  the  impulse  that  provoked  liim  to  put 
forth  liis  powers.  The  Ed'inhur(ih,  with  the  attack  on  tiie 
Hours  of  Jd/cncss,  appeared  in  March,  1808.  This  pro- 
duction, by  Lord  Brougham,  is  a  specimen  of  the  toma- 
liawk  style  of  criticism  prevalent  in  the  early  years  of  the 
century,  in  which  the  main  motive  of  the  critic  was,  not  to 
deal  fairly  with  his  author,  but  to  acquire  for  himself  an 
easy  reputation  for  cleverness,  by  a  series  of  smart,  con- 
temptuous sentences.  Taken  separately,  the  strictures  of 
the  J^dlnhurgh  are  suilieiently  just,  and  the  passages 
quoted  for  censure  are  all  bad.  Byron's  genius  as  a  poet 
was  not  remarkably  precocious.  The  Hours  of  Idleness 
seldom  rise,  either  in  thought  or  expression,  very  far 
above  the  average  level  of  juvenile  verse;  many  of  the 
j)ie<es  in  the  collection  are  weak  imitations,  or  common- 
place descriptions;  others,  suggested  by  circum-itances  of 
local  or  temporary  interest,  had  served  their  turn  before 
coming  into  print.  Tlieir  prevailing  sentiment  is  an  affec- 
tation of  misanthropy,  conveyed  in  such  lines  as  these  : — 

"  Weary  of  love,  of  life,  ilcvour'd  with  spleen, 
I  rest,  a  perfect  Tiiuon,  not  nineteen." 

This  mawkish  element  unfortunately  survives  in  much 
of  the  author's  later  verse.  But  even  in  this  volume  there 
arc  indications  of  force  and  command.  The  Prayer  of 
Nature  indeed,  though  previously  written,  was  not  in- 
cluded in  the  edition  before  the  notice  of  the  critic;  but 
the  sound  of  Loch-na-Gair  and  some  of  the  stanzas  on 
Netostead  ought  to  have  saved  him  from  the  mi.stakc  of 


111.]       CAMBRIDGE— FIRST  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP. 

bis  impudent  advice.  The  poet,  who  through  life  waited 
with  feverish  anxiety  for  every  verdict  on  his  work,  is  re-  \lA 
ported,  after  reading  the  review,  to  have  looked  like  a  man  /^ 
about  to  send  a  challenge.  In  the  midst  of  a  transparo*^ 
show  of  indifference,  he  confesses  to  have  drunk  three  bot- 
tles of  claret  on  the  evening  of  its  appearance.  But  the 
wound  did  not  mortify  into  torpor;  the  Sea-Kings'  blood 
stood  him  in  good  stead,  and  he  was  not  long  in  collect- 
ing his  strength  for  the  panther-like  spring,  which,  gaining 
strength  by  its  delay,  twelve  months  later  made  it  impos- 
sible for  him  to  be  contemned. 

The  last  months  of  the  year  he  spent  at  Newstead,  va- 
cated by  the  tenant,  who  had  left  the  building  in  the  tum- 
ble-down condition  in  which  he  found  it.  Byron  was,  by 
his  own  acknowledgment,  at  this  time  "  heavily  dipped," 
generosities  having  combined  with  selfish  extravagances 
to  the  result ;  he  had  no  funds  to  subject  the  place  to  any- 
thing like  a  thorough  repair,  but  he  busied  himself  in  ar- 
ranging a  few  of  the  rooms  for  his  own  present  and  his 
mother's  after  use.  About  this  date  he  writes  to  her,  be- 
ginning in  his  usual  style,  "Dear  Madam,"  saying  he  has 
as  yet  no  rooms  ready  for  her  reception,  but  that  on  his 
departui-tf  she  shall  be  tenant  till  his  return.  During  this 
interval  he  was  studying  Pope,  and  carefully  maturing  his 
own  satire.  In  November  the  dog  Boatswain  died  in  a 
fit  of  madness.  The  event  called  forth  the  famous  burst 
of  misanthropic  verse,  ending  with  the  couplet — 

"To  mark  a  friend's  remains  these  stones  arise; 
I  never  linew  but  one,  and  here  he  lies ;" — 

and  the  inscription  on  the  monument  that  still  remains  in 
the  gardens  of  Newstead — 
3* 


50  DVKON.  [ciui'. 

"  Near  this  spot 

Are  deposited  the  reinuins  of  one 

Who  possessed  Beauty  without  Vauity, 

Strength  without  Insolence, 

Courage  williout  Ferocity, 

And  all  the  virtues  of  Man  without  his  Vices. 

This  Praise,  which  would  be  uniueauing  Flattery 

If  inscribed  over  human  ashes, 

Is  but  a  just  tribute  to  the  Memory  of 

Boatswain,  a  Dog, 

Who  was  born  at  Newfoundland,  May,  1803, 

And  died  at  Newstcad  Abbey,  November  18, 1808." 

On  Jamiarv  22,  1809,  his  lonlsliip's  coming  of  age  was 
celebrated  witli  festivities,  curtailed  of  their  proportions 
by  his  limited  means.  Early  in  spring  he  paid  a  visit  to 
London,  bringing  the  proof  of  his  satire  to  the  publisher, 
Cawthorne.  From  8t.  James's  Street  he  writes  to  Mrs. 
Byron,  on  the  death  of  Lord  Falkland,  who  had  been  kill- 
ed in  a  duel,  and  expresses  a  sympathy  for  his  family,  left 
in  destitute  circumstances,  whom  he  proceeded  to  relieve 
with  a  generosity  only  equalled  by  the  delicacy  of  the 
manner  in  which  it  was  shown.  Referring  to  his  own 
embarrassment,  he  proceeds  in  the  expression  of  a  resolve, 
often  repeated,  "  Come  what  may,  Newstead  and  I  stand 
or  fall  together.  I  have  now  lived. on  the  spot — I  have 
fixed  my  heart  on  it ;  and  no  pressure,  present  or  future, 
shall  induce  me  to  barter  the  last  vestige  of  our  inherit- 
ance." He  was  building  false  hopes  on  the  result  of  the 
suit  for  the  Rochdale  property,  wliich,  being  dragged  from 
court  to  court,  involved  him  in  heavy  expenses,  witli  no 
satisfactory  result,  lie  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of 
Lords  on  the  13tli  of  March,  and  Mr.  Dallas,  who  accom- 
jianied  him  to  the  bar  of  the  House,  has  left  an  account  of 
his  somewhat  unfortunate  demeanour. 


III.]       CAMBRIDGE— FIRST  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.        61 

"His  countenauce,  paler  than  usual,  showed  that  his 
mind  was  agitated,  and  that  he  was  thinking  of  the  noble- 
man to  whom  he  had  once  looked  for  a  hand  and  counte- 
nance in  his  introduction.  There  were  very  few  persons 
in  the  House.  Lord  Eldon  was  going  through  some  ordi- 
nary business.  When  Lord  Byron  had  taken  the  oaths, 
the  Chancellor  quitted  his  seat,  and  went  towards  him 
with  a  smile,  putting  out  his  hand  warmly  to  welcome 
him  ;  and,  though  I  did  not  catch  the  words,  I  saw  that 
he  paid  him  some  compliment.  This  was  all  throwi 
away  upon  Lord  Byron,  who  made  a  stiff  bow,  and  putVyet 
the  tips  of  his  fingers  into  the  Chancellor's  hand.  The 
Chancellor  did  not  press  a  welcome  so  received,  but  re- 
sumed his  seat;  while  Lord  Byron  carelessly  seated  him 
self  for  a  few  minutes  on  one  of  the  empty  benches  to  the 
left  of  the  throne,  usually  occupied  by  the  lords  in  Oppo- 
sition. AYhen,  on  his  joining  me,  I  expressed  what  I  had 
felt,  he  said,  '  If  I  had  shaken  hands  heartily,  he  would 
have  set  me  down  for  one  of  his  party ;  but  I  will  have 
nothing  to  do  with  them  on  cither  side.  I  have  taken 
my  seat,  and  now  I  will  go  abroad.'  " 

A  few  days  later  the  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Re- 
viewers appeared  before  the  public.  The  first  anonymous 
edition  was  exhausted  in  a  month  ;  a  second,  to  which  the 
author  gave  his  name,  quickly  followed.  He  was  wont  at 
a  later  date  to  disparage  this  production,  and  frequently 
recanted  many  of  his  verdicts  in  marginal  notes.  Several, 
indeed,  seem  to  have  been  dictated  by  feelings  so  transi- 
tory, that  in  the  course  of  the  correction  of  proof  blame 
was  turned  into  praise,  and  praise  into  blame ;  i.e.,  he  wrote 
in  MS.  before  he  met  the  agreeable  author — 

"  I  leave  topography  to  coxcomb  Gell ;" 


6'^  liYROX.  [chap. 

wc  li;ivc  his  second  thought  in  the  first  edition,  before  he 
saw  tlie  Troad — 

"  I  leave  topography  to  classic  Gell ;" 

and  liis  third,  lialf-way  in  censure,  in  the  fifth — 

"  I  leave  topography  to  rapid  Gell." 

Of  such  materials  are  literary  judi^ments  made ! 

The  success  of  Byron's  satire  was  due  to  the  fact  of  its 
being  the  only  good  thing  of  its  kind  since  Churchill — for 
in  the  Baviad  and  Mixviud  only  butterflies  were  broken 
upon  the  wheel — and  to  its  being  the  first  promise  of  a 
new  power.  The  Bards  and  Reviewers  also  enlisted  sym- 
pathy, from  its  vigorous  attack  upon  the  critics  who  had 
hitherto  assumed  the  prerogative  of  attack.  Jctfrey  and 
Brougham  were  seethed  in  their  own  milk  ;  and  outsiders, 
whose  credentials  were  still  being  examined,  as  Moore  and 
Campbell,  came  in  for  their  share  of  vigorous  vituperation. 
The  Lakers  fared  worst  of  all.  It  was  the  beginning  of 
the  author's  lifo-long  war,  only  once  relaxed,  w  ith  Southey. 
Wordsworth — though  against  this  passage  is  written  "un- 
just," a  concession  not  much  sooner  made  than  withdrawn 
— is  dubbed  an  idiot,  who — 

"  Both  J)y  precept  and  example  shows, 
That  prose  is  verse,  aud  verse  is  only  prose ;" 

and  Coleridge,  a  baby — 

"  To  turgid  ode  and  tumid  stanza  dear." 

The  lines  ridiculing  the  encounter  between  Jeffrey  and 
Moore  are  a  fair  specimen  of  the  accuracy  with  which  the 
author  had  caught  the  ring  of  Pope's  antithesis : — 


III.]       CAMBRIDGE— FIRST  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.         53 

"  The  surly  Tolbooth  scarcely  kept  her  place. 
The  Tolbooth  felt — for  marble  sometimes  can, 
On  such  occasions,  feel  as  much  as  man — 
The  Tolbooth  felt  defrauded  of  her  charms, 
If  Jeffrey  died,  except  within  her  arms." 

Meanwhile  Byron  had  again  retired  to  Newstead,  where 
he  invited  some  choice  spirits  to  hold  a  few  weeks  of  fare- 
well revel.  Matthews,  one  of  these,  gives  an  account  of 
the  place,  and  the  time  they  spent  there — entering  the 
mansion  between  a  bear  and  a  wolf,  amid  a  salvo  of  pistol- 
shots  ;  sitting  up  to  all  hours,  talking  politics,  philosophy, 
poetry ;  hearing  stories  of  the  dead  lords,  and  the  ghost 
of  the  Black  Brother;  drinking  their  wine  out  of  the 
skull-cup  which  the  owner  had  made  out  of  the  cranium 
of  some  old  monk  dug  up  in  the  garden ;  breakfasting  at 
two,  then  reading,  fencing,  riding,  cricketing,  sailing  on 
the  lake,  and  playing  with  the  bear  or  teasing  the  wolf. 
The  party  broke  up  without  having  made  themselves  re- 
sponsible for  any  of  the  orgies  of  which  Childe  Harold 
raves,  and  which  Dallas  in  good  earnest  accepts  as  vera- 
cious, when  the  poet  and  his  friend  Hobhouse  started  for 
Falmouth,  on  their  way  ^^  outre  merr 


CHAPTER  IV. 

TWO    YEARS    OF   TRAVEL. 

There  is  no  romance  of  Munchausen  or  Daraas  more 
marvellous  than  the  adventures  attributed  to  Lord  Byron 
abroad.  Attaclied  to  his  first  expedition  are  a  series  of 
narratives,  by  professing  eye-witnesses,  of  his  intrigues,  en- 
counters, acts  of  diablerie  and  of  munificence,  in  particular 
of  his  roaming  about  the  isles  of  Greece  and  taking  pos- 
session of  one  of  them,  which  have  all  the  same  relation 
to  reality  as  the  Arabian  Nights  to  the  actual  reign  of 
Haroun  Al  Kaschid.* 

Byron  had  far  more  than  an  average  share  of  the  emigre 
spirit,  the  counterpoise  in  the  I'^uglish  raoe  of  their  other- 
wise arrogant  isolation.     He  held  with  Wilhelm  Meister — 

"  To  give  space  for  wandering  is  it, 
That  the  earth  was  made  so  wide  ;" 

'and  wrote  to  liis  mother  from  Athens :  "  I  am  so  convinced 
of  the  advantages  of  looking  at  mankind,  instead  of  read- 
ing about  them,  and  the  bitter  eilects  of  staying  at  home 
willi  all  the  narrow  prejudices  of  an  islander,  that  I  think 
there  should  be  a  law  amongst  us  to  send  our  young  men 
abroad  for  a  term,  among  the  few  allies  our  wars  have  left 

JUS." 

, '  Tiiose  who  wish  to  read  them  arc  referred  to  the  large  three  vol- 
uincs — iiiiblishcd  in  1825,  by  Mr.  Iley,  I'ortman  Square — of  anony- 
mous autliorsliip. 


cuA)'.  iv.j  TWO  YEARS  OF  TRAVEL.  55 

On  June  lltli,  having  borrowed  money  at  heavy  inter- 
est, and  stored  his  mind  with  information  about  Persia  and 
India,  the  contemplated  but  unattained  goal  of  his  travels, 
he  left  London,  accompanied  by  his  friend  Hobhonse, 
Fletcher  his  valet,  Joe  Murray  his  old  butler,  and  Robert 
Rushton,  the  son  of  one  of  his  tenants,  supposed  to  be  rep- 
resented by  the  Page  in  Childe  Harold.  The  two  latter, 
the  one  on  account  of  his  age,  the  other  from  his  health 
breaking  down,  he  sent  back  to  England  from  Gibraltar. 

Becalmed  for  some  days  at  Falmouth,  a  town  which  he 
describes  as  "  full  of  Quakers  and  salt  fish,"  he  despatched 
letters  to  his  mother,  Drury,  and  Hodgson,  exhibiting  the 
changing  moods  of  his  mind.  Smarting  under  a  slight  he 
bad  received  at  parting  from  a  school-companion,  who  had 
excused  himself  from  a  farewell  meeting  on  the  plea  that 
he  had  to  go  shopping,  he  at  one  moment  talks  of  his  des- 
olation, and  says  that,  "  leaving  England  without  regret," 
he  has  thought  of  entering  the  Turkish  service;  in  the 
next,  especially  in  the  stanzas  to  Hodgson,  he  runs  off  into 
a  strain  of  boisterous  buffoonery.  On  the  2nd  of  July,  the 
packet  by  which  he  was  bound  sailed  for  Lisbon,  and  ar- 
rived there  about  the  middle  of  the  month,  when  the  Eng- 
lish fleet  was  anchored  in  the  Tagus.  The  poet  in  some 
of  his  stanzas  has  described  the  fine  view  of  the  port  and 
the  disconsolate  dirtiness  of  the  city  itself,  the  streets  of 
which  were  at  that  time  rendered  dangerous  by  the  fre- 
quency of  religious  and  political  assassinations.  Nothing 
else  remains  of  his  sojourn  to  interest  us,  save  the  state- 
ment of  Mr.  Hobhouse,  that  his  friend  made  a  more  peril- 
ous, though  less  celebrated,  achievement  by  water  than 
his  crossing  the  Hellespont,  in  swimming  from  old  Lisbon 
to  Belem  Castle.  Byron  praises  the  neighbouring  Cintra 
as  "  the  most  beautiful  village  in  the  world,"  though  he 


50  BYKOX.  [chap. 

joins  with  W'urclswortli  in  heaping  anathemas  on  the  Con- 
vention, and  extols  the  grandeur  of  Xiafra,  the  Escurial  of 
I'ortugal,  in  the  convent  of  whieli  a  monk,  showing  the 
traveller  a  large  library,  asked  if  the  English  had  any 
books  in  their  country.  Despatching  his  baggage  and 
servants  by  sea  to  Gibraltar,  he  and  his  friend  started  on 
horseback  through  the  south-west  of  Spain.  Their  first 
resting-place,  after  a  ride  of  400  miles,  performed  at  an 
average  rate  of  seventy  in  the  twenty-four  hours,  was  Sc- 
vill(j,-where  tliey  lodged  for  three  days  in  the  house  of  two 
liulies,  to  whose  attractions,  as  well  as  the  fasciiuition  he 
scsiuii-te^ave  exerted  over  them,  the  poet  somewhat  gar- 
rulously refers.  Here,  too,  he  saw,  parading  on  the  Prado, 
the  famous  Maid  of  Saragassa.,  whom  he  celebrates  in  his 
equally  famous  stanzas  {Childe  Harold,  I.,  54-58).  Of 
Cadiz,  the  next  stage,  he  writes  with  enthusiasm  as  a  mod- 
ern Cythera,  describing  the  bull-fights  irLhis  v.^rsc,  and  the 
beauties  in  glowing  prose.  The  belles  of  this  city,  he  says, 
are  the  Lancashire  witches  of  Spain ;  and  by  reason  of 
them,  rather  than  the  sea -shore  or  the  Sierra  Morena, 
"  sweet  Cadiz  is  the  first  spot  in  the  creation."  Hence, 
by  an  English  frigate,  they  sailed  to  Gibraltar,  for  which 
place  he  has  nothing  but  curses.  Byron  liad  no  sympathy 
with  the  ordinary  forms  of  British  patriotism,  and  in  our 
great  struggle  with  tlj.c  tyranny  of  the  FirstT^mpire,  ho 
may  almost  be  said  t^^Jiave  sympathized  with  Napoleiui/ 

The  ship  stopped  at  Cagliari,  in  Sardinia,  and  again  at 
(Jirgenti,  on  the  Sicilian  coast.  Arriving  at  Malta,  they 
halted  there  for  three  weeks — time  enough  to  establish  a 
sentimental,  though  Platonic,  flirtation  with  Mrs.  Spencer 
Smith,  wife  of  our  minister  at  Constantinople,  sister-in-law 
of  the  famous  admiral,  and  the  heroine  of  some  exciting 
adventures.     She   is   the  "Florence"  of   Childe  Harold, 


IV.]  TWO  YEARS  OF  TRAVEL.  57 

and  is  afterwards  addressed  in  some  of  the  most  graceful 
verses  of  his  cavalier  minstrelsy — 

"  Do  thou,  amidst  the  fair  white  walls, 

If  Cadiz  yet  be  free, 
At  times  from  out  her  latticed  halls 

Look  o'er  the  dark  blue  sea — 
Then  think  upon  Calypso's  isles, 

Endear'd  by  days  gone  by — 
To  others  give  a  thousand  smiles. 

To  me  a  single  sigh." 

The  only  other  adventure  of  the  visit  is  Byron's  quarrel 
with  an  officer,  on  some  unrecorded  ground,  which  Hob- 
house  tells  us  nearly  resulted  in  a  duel.  The  friends  left 
Malta  on  September  29th,  in  the  war-ship  "Spider,"  and 
after  anchoring  oS  Patras,  and  spending  a  few  hours  on 
shore,  they  skirted  the  coast  of  Acarnania,  in  view  of  local- 
ities— as  Ithaca,  the  Leucadian  rock,  and  Actium — whose 
classic  memories  iiltered  through  the  poet's  mind  and 
found  a  place  in  his  masteipierres.  Landing  at  Previsa, 
they  started  on  a  tour  through  AUoauia — 

"  O'er  manyji  mount  sublime, 
"  Through  lands  scarce  noticed  in  historic  tales." 

Byron  was  deeply  impressed  by  the  beauty  of  the  scenery, 
and  the  half-savage  independence  of  the  people,  described 
as  "  always  strutting  about  with  slow  dignity,  though  in 
rags."  In  October  we  find  him  with  his  companions  at 
Janina,  hospitably  entertained  by  order  of  Ali  Pasha,  the 
famous  Albanian  Turk,  bandit,  and  despot,  then  engaged 
in  besieging  Ibrahim  in  Illyria.  They  proceeded  on  their 
way  by  "  bleak  Pindus,"  Acherusia's  lake,  and  Zitza,  with 
its  monastery  door  battered  by  robbers.  Before  reaching 
the  latter  place  they  encountered  a  terrific  thunder-storm, 


58  BYROX.  [ciup. 

in  tliL'  midst  of  wliioli  tlicy  soparatod,  and  Byron's  detach- 
ment lost  its  way  for  nine  liours,  during  wliirli  he  com- 
posed the  verses  to  Florence,  quoted  above. 

Some  days  later  they  together  arrived  at  Tepelleni,  and 
were  there  received  by  Ali  I'asha  in  person.  The  scene  on 
enterinj^  the  town  is  described  as  recalling  Scott's  Brank- 
somc  Castle  and  the  feudal  system ;  and  the  introduction 
to  Ali,  wiio  sat  for  some  of  the  traits  of  the  poet's  cyfsairsy^ 
is  graphically  reproduced  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Byron.  "  Uis 
first  (juestion  was,  why  at  so  early  an  age  I  left  my  coun- 
try, and  without  a  '  lala,'  or  nurse?  lie  then  said  the  Eng- 
lish minister  had  told  him  I  was  of  a  great  family,  and  de- 
sired his  respects  to  my  mother,  which  I  now  present  to 
you  (date,  November  12th).  He  said  he  was  certain  I  was 
^  man  of  birth,  because  I  had  small  ears,  curling  hair,  and 
mile  white  hands.  He  told  me  to  consider  him  as  a  fa- 
ther whilst  I  was  in  Turkey,  and  said  he  looked  on  me  as 
his  son.  Indeed  he  treated  me  like  a  child,  sending  mc 
almonds,  fruit,  and  sweetmeats  twenty  times  a  day."  By- 
ron shortly  afterwards  discovered  his  host  to  be  a  poisoner 
and  an  assassin.  "  Two  days  ago,"  he  proceeds,  in  a  pas- 
sage which  illustrates  his  character  and  a  common  experi- 
ence, "  I  was  nearly  lost  in  a  Turkish  ship-of-war,  owing  to 
the  ignorance  of  the  captain  and  crew.  Fletcher  yelled 
after  his  wife;  the  Greeks  called  on  ail  the  saints,  the  Mus- 
sulincn  on  Alia;  the  captain  burst  into  tears  and  ran  be- 
low deck,  telling  us  to  call  on  God.  The  sails  were  split, 
the  mainyard  shivered,  the  wind  blowing  fresh,  the  night 
setting  in ;  and  all  our  chance  was  to  make  for  Corfu— 
or,  as  F.  pathetically  called  it,  '  a  watery  grave.'  I  did 
what  I  could  to  console  him,  but  finding  him  i/icorrigjbm, 
wra{)pcd  myself  in  my  Albanian  capote,  and  lTry^-4tTrt1i  on 
the  deck  to  wait  the  worst."     Unable  from  his  lameness, 


IT.]  TWO  YEARS  OF  TRAVEL.  59 

says  Ilobbouse,  to  be  of  any  assistance,  lie  in  a  sbort  time 
was  found  amid  tbe  trembling  sailors  fast  asleep.  Tbey 
got  back  to  tbe  coast  of  Suli,  and  sbortly  afterwards  start- 
ed througb  Acarnania  and  ^tolia  for  tbe  Morea,  again  re- 
joicing in  the  wild  scenery  and  the  apparently  kindred 
spirits  of  the  wild  men  among  whom  they  passed.  Byron 
was  especially  fascinated  by  the  fire-light  dance  and  song 
of  the  robber  band,  which  he  describes  and  reproduces  in 
Childe  Harold.  On  the  21st  of  November  be  reached 
Mesolonghi,  where,  fifteen  years  later,  he  died.  Here  he 
dismissed  most  of  his  escort,  proceeded  to  Patras,  and  on  to 
Vostizza,  caught  sight  of  Parnassus,  and  accepted  a  flight 
of  eagles  near  Delphi  as__a-iavotH4»g^sign_of  Apollo.  "The 
last  bird,"  he  wpte^T^^^I  (^^'cr  fired  at  was  an ^  eaglet  oi)  the 
shore  of  th^brulf  of  Lepanto.  It  was  only  wounded,  and 
I  tried  to\save  it — the  eye  was  so  bright.  But/it  pined 
and  died  in\i  few  days ;  and  I  never  did  sine6,  and  never 
will,  attempt  theTife-^uf-aaotherJwdr'*^  From  Livadia  the 
travellers  proceeded  to  Thebes,  visited  the  cave  of  Tropho- 
nius,  Diana's  fountain,  the  so-called  ruins  of  Pindar's  house, 
and  the  field  of  Cheronea,  crossed  Cithaeron,  and  on  Christ- 
mas, 1809,  arrived  before  the  defile,  near  the  ruins  of  Phyle, 
where  he  had  his  first  glimpse  of  Athens,  which  evoked  the 
famous  lines : — 

"  Ancient  of  days,  august  Athena !  where, 
Where  are  thy  men  of  miglit  ?  thy  grand  in  soul  ? 
Gone,  glimmering  through  the  dreams  of  things  that  were. 
First  in  the  race  that  led  to  glory's  goal, 
They  won,  and  pass'd  away  :  is  this  the  whole— 
A  schoolboy'sJale^ej7_oadeiiiiLanJiojiiL?T7    C   f-j  c 

After  which  he  reverts  to  his  perpetually  recurring  moral, 
"  Men  come  and  go ;  but  the  hills,  and  waves,  and  skies, 
and  stars  endure  " — 


CO  HYKON'.  [<^"-^''- 

"Apollo  still  thy  lonfr,  lonj,'  summer  glU'.s  ; 
Still  ia  hid  beam  Memleli's  marbles  j^lare  ; 
Art,  glory,  freedom  fail— but  nature  still  is  fair." 

The  duration  of  Lord  Byron's  first  visit  to  Athens  was 
about  three  mouths,  and  it  was  varied  by  excursions  to 
different  parts  of  Attica— Eleusis,  llymettus,  Cape  Colon- 
na,  Suuiuiii,  llic  scene  of  Falconer's  shipwreck,  the  Colo- 
iios  of  (Edipus,  and  Marathon,  the  plain  of  which  is  said 
to  have  been  placed  at  his  disposal  for  about  the  same 
sum  that  thirty  years  later  an  American  volunteered  to 
give  for  the  bark  with  his  name, on  the  tree  at  Nowstead. 
Byron  had  a  poor  opinion  of  the  modern  Alliciiians,  who 
seem  to  have  at  this  period  done  their  best  to  justify  the 
Roman  satirist,  lie  found  them  superficial,  cunniii!_s  and 
false;  but,  with  generous  historic  insight,  he  says  that  no 
nation  in  like  circumstancos  would  have  been  much  bet- 
ter; that  they  had  the  vices  of  ages  of  slavery,  from 
which  it  would  recpiire  ages  of  freedom  to  emancipate 
them. 

In  the  Greek  capital  he  lodged  at  the  liouse  of  a  re- 
spectable lady,  widow  of  an  English  vice-consul,  who  had 
three  daughters,  the  eldest  of  whom,  Theresa,  acquired 
an  innocent  and  enviable  fame  as  the  Maid  of  Athens, 
■without  the  dangerous  glory  of  h  iving  taken  any  very 
firm  hold  of  the  heart  that  she  was  asked  to  return.  A 
more  solid  passion  was  the  poet's  genuine  indignation  on 
the  "  lifting,"  in  r>order  phrase,  of  the  marbles  from  the 
rartheuon,"'and  thwir  being  taken  to  England  by  order  of 
Lord  (Elgin.  Byron  nm'er  wrote  anything  more  sincere 
than  the  Curse  of  Miveriht  ;  and  he  has  recorded  few  in- 
cidents nKu:e__patlietic  .than  that  of  the  old  Greek  who, 
when  the  last  stone  was  removed  for  exportation,  shed 
tears   and   said   "  reXoc !"     The  question    is   still  an  open 


IT.]  TWO  YEAlJS  OF  TRAVEL.  61 

one  of  etLics.  There  are  few  Englishmen  of  the  higher 
rank  who  do  not  hold  London  in  the  right  hand  as  bare- 
ly balanced  by  tlie  rest  of  the  world  in  the  left;  a  judg> 
nient  in  which  we  can  hardly  expect  Romans,  Parisians, 
and  Athenians  to  concur.  On  the  other  hand,  the  mar- 
bles were  mouldering  at  Athens,  and  they  are  preserved, 
like  ginger,  in  the  British  Museum. 

Among  the  adventures  of  this  period  are  an  expedition 
across  the  Ilissus  to  some  caves  near  Kharyati,  in  which 
the  travellers  were  by  accident  nearly  entombed ;  anoth- 
er to  Pentelicus,  where  they  tried  to  carve  their  names 
on  the  marble  rock  ;  and  a  third  to  the  environs  of  the 
Piraeus  in  the  evening  light.  Early  in  March  the  con- 
venient departure  of  an  English  sloop -of -war  induced 
tliem  to  make  an  excursion  to  Smyrna.  There,  on  the 
28th  of  March,  the  second  canto  of  Clulde  Harold,  be- 
gun in  the  previous  autumn  at  Janina,  was  completed. 
They  remained  in  the  neighbourhood,  visiting  Ephesus, 
without  poetical  result  further  than  a  reference  to  the 
jackals,  in  the  Siege  of  Corinth;  and  on  April  11th  left 
bv  the  "  Salsette,"  a  frigate  on  its  way  to  Constantinople. 
The  vessel  touched  at  the  Troad,  and  Byron  spent  some 
time  on  land,  snipe -shooting,  and  rambling  among  the 
reputed  ruins  of  Ilium.  The  poet  characteristically,  in 
Don  Juan  and  elsewhere,  attacks  the  sceptics,  and  then  ', 
half  ridicules  the  belief.  ^      \ 

"  I've  stood  upon  Achilles'  tomb,  (      ;  ^ 

And  heard  Troy  doubted  !     Time  will  doubt  of  Rome ! 

****** 
There,  on  the  green  and  village-cotted  hill,  is, 
Flank'd  by  the  Hellespont,  and  by  the  sea, 
Entomb'd  the  bravest  of  the  brave  Achilles. — 
They  say  so  :  Bryant  says  the  contrary." 


62  BYRON.  [lUAP. 

Being  ajifain  detained  in  tlie  Dardanelles,  waiting  for  a 
fair  wind,  Byrun  landed  on  tlie  l-^iiropean  side,  and  swam, 
in   company   with   Lieutenant   Ekenhead,  from   Scstos   to 
Abydos — a  ixrfonnancc  of  which  licbQiUjts-HOTiroytwenty 
times.     The  strength  of  the  current  is  the  main  diffieulty 
of  a  feat,  since  so  surpassed  as  to  have  passed  from  no- 
iii-e;  hut  it  was  a  tempting  theme  for  classical  allusions. 
Il\t  length,  on  May  14,  he  reached  Constantinople,  exalted 
ijhe  Golden  Horn  above  all  the  sights  he  had  seen,  and 
jiow  first  abandoned  his  design   of  travelling  to  Persia. 
iait,  and  other  morc,jM-kss-g(^sipping  travellers,  have  ac- 
nunulated  a  number  of  incidents  of  the  poet's  life  at  this- 
period,  of  his  fanciful  dress,  blazing  in  scarlet  aud^  g«J4|-^' 
and  of  his  somctimcs'absurd  cdwtcntibns  for  the  privileges 
f  rank — as  when  he  demanded  precedence  of  the  Eng- 
lish ambassador  in  an  interview  with  the  Sultan,  and,  on 
its  refusal,  could  only  be  pacified  by  the  assurances  of  the 
^  Austrian  J^ternuncio.     In  converse  with,  indifferent  per- 
I'sons  he  displayed  a  curious  alternation  ;of  frankness  and 
hauteur,  and  indulged  a  habit  of  letti^ng  people  up  and 
jJown,  by  which  he  frequently  gave  offence.     More  inter- 
are  narratives  of  the  suggestion   of  some  of  his 
s,lis  tkc  slave-market  in  Don  Juan,  and  the  specta- 
of  the  deaH^emainal^.tossed  on  the  waves,  revived  in 
thcN^m/c   nf  Ah>/dns.     One    example   is,  if   we    except 
inte\s   r}7P/'Wifl^-tluLiii^os^j:eimirkable  instance  in  litera- 
\  ture  of  the  expansion,  without  the  weakening,  of  the  hor- 
Arible.     Take  first  Mr,  ITobliouse's  plain  prose  :  "  The  scn- 
[  sations  produced  by  the  state  of  the  weather"  —  it  was 
wretched  and  stormy  when  they  left  the  **  Salsettc  "  for 
the  city — "and  leaving  a  comfortable  cabin,  were  in  uni- 
son  with   the   impressions    which   wc    felt   Avhcn,  passing 
under  the  palace  of  the  Sultans,  and  ga/ing  at  the  gloomy 


uown,  u' 
estihg  a 


I    Da 


IT.] 


TWO  YEAKS  OF  TRAVEL. 


63 


cypress  which  rises  above  the  walls,  we  saw  two  dogs 
gnawing  a  dead  body."  After  this  we  may  measure  the 
almost  fiendish  force  of  a  morbid  imagination  brooding 
over  the  incident — 

"  And  he  saw  the  lean  dogs  beneath  the  wa 
Hold  o'er  the  dead  their  carnival : 
Gorging  and  growling  o'er  carcass  and  limb, 
They  were  too  busy  to  bark  at  hira. 
From  a  Tartar's  skull  they  had  stripp'd  the  flesh. 
As  ye  peel  the  fig  when  its  fruit  is  fresh  ; 
And  their  white  tusks  crunched  on  the  whiter  skull. 
As  it  slipp'd  through  their  jaws  when  their  edge  grew  dull  " 

No  one  ever  more  persistently  converted  the-incidents 
travel  into  poetic  material ;  but  sometimes,  in  doing  so,  he 
)orrowed  more  largely  from  his  imagination  than  his  mem- 
ory, as  in  the  description  of  the  seraglio,  of  which  there  is 
reason  to  doubt  his  having  seen  more  than  the  entrance. 

Byron  and  Hobhouse  set  sail  from  Constantinople  on 
the  14th  July,  1810 — the  latter  to  return  direct  to  Eng- 
land, a  determination  which,  from  no  apparent  fault  on^ 
either  side,  the  former  did  not  regret.  One  incident  oi 
the  passage  derives  interest  from  its  possible  consequence. 
Taking  up,  and  unsheathing,  a  yataghan  which  he  found 
on  the  quarter-deck,  he  remarked,  "  I_should  lilce  to  know 
how  a  person  feds-altcr^coinmitting  a  murder, 
harmless  piece  of  melodrama^— the  idea  of  which  is  e^J^ 
panded  in  Mr.  Dobell's  Balder,  and  parodied  in  Firmilian 
— may  have  been  the  basis  of  a  report  afterwards  circu- 
lated, and  accepted  among  others  by  Goethe,  that  his  lord- 
ship had  committed  a  murder  ;  hence,  obviously,  the  chaj 
aHet^  Lara,  and  the  mystery  of  ManfredlTh^-^oQi 
partcdfromliiB-Jricnd  at  Zca  (Geo?)7'affcFspending  some 
time  in  solitude  on  the  little  island,  he  returned  to  Athens, 


64  BYRON.  [ciiAP. 

and  there  renewed  acquaintance  with  his  school  fiieml,  the 
Marquis  of  Slii^o,  wlio  after  a  few  days  accompanied  him 
to  Corinth.  They  then  separated,  and  Byron  went  un  to 
Patras,  in  the  Morea,  where  lie  had  business  with  the  Con- 
sul. He  dates  from  there  at  the  close  of  July.  It  is  im- 
possible to  give  a  consecutive  account  of  his  life  durin<^ 
the  next  ten  months,  a  period  consequently  tilled  up  with 
the  contradictory  and  absurd  mass  of  lejjfends  before  re- 
ferral to.  A  few  facts  only  of  any  interest  arc  cxtricable. 
During  at  least  half  of  the  time  his  head -quarters  were 
at  Athens,  where  he  again  met  his  friend  the  Manjuis, 
associated  with  the  English  Consul  and  Lady  Hester  Stan- 
hope, studied  Romaic  in  a  Franciscan  monastery — where 
he  saw  and  conversed  with  a  motley  crew  of  French,  Ital- 
ians, Danes,  Greeks,  Turks,  and  Americans — wrote  to  his 
■!Tcr"aiTtl  mTrars,  saying  he  had  swum  from  Sestos  to 
ibydos,  was  siek\)f  Fletcher  bawling  for  beef  and  beer, 
^d  done  with  autluA-ship,  and  hoped,  on  his  return,  to  lead 
a  qttTet-4'ccjuseJj^*^  He  t^cvertheless  made  notes  to  Har- 
old, composed  tl>e  Hints  from  Horace  and  the  Curse  of 
Mmer.va^-QXi\  presumably  brooded  over,  and  outlined  in 
his  mind,  many  of  his  verse  romances.  We  hear  no  more 
of  the  Miud  ofy<^WTVTtfij  but  there  is  no  fair  ground  to 
doubt  that  the/  G^/aoMrJwas  suggested  by  his  rescue  of  a 
young  Woman  whom,  forxthe  fault  of  an  amour  with  some 
Frank,  a  party  ofNjaiiissjjries  were  about  to  throw,  sewn  up 
in  a  sack,  into  the  sea.  Mr.  Gait  gives  no  authority  for 
his  statement,  that  the  girl's  deliverer  was  the  original 
cause  of  her  sentence.  We  mav^oJi^-fts^ured  that  if  it  had 
been  so,  Byron  himjK^iv««ttd  have  told  us  of  it. 

A  note  to  the  Siege  of^^^rinth  is  suggestive  of  his 
unequalled  restlessness.  "  I  visKQd  all  three — Tripolitza, 
Napoli,  and   Argos — in   lSlO-11;   and   in  the    course   of 


IV.]  TWO  YEARS  OF  TRAVEL.  65 

journeying  through  the  country,  from  my  first  arrival  in 
1809,  crossed  the  Isthmus  eight  times  on  my  way  from 
Attica  to  tlie  Morea.  In  tlie  latter  locality  we  find  him, 
during  the  autumn,  the  honoured  guest  of  the  Vizier  Valhi 
(a  son  of  Ali  Pasha),  who  presented  him  with  a  fine  horse. 
During  a  second  visit  to  Patras,  in'Septe~lpber,  he  was  at- 
tacked by  the  same  sort  of  mar^  fever^om  which,  four- 
teen years  afterwards,  in  the  near  neighbourhood,  he  died. 
On  his  recovery,  in  October,  he  complains  of  having  been 
nearly  killed  by  the  heroic  measures  of  the  native  doctors : 
"  One  of  them  trusts  to  his  genius,  never  having  studied ; 
the  other,  to  a  campaign  of  eighteen  months  against  the 
sick  of  Otranto,  which  he  made  ia-iiis  youth  with  great 
effect.  When  I  was  seized  with  my  disorder,  I  protested 
against  both  these  assassins,  but  in  vain."  He  was  saved 
by  the  zeal  of  his  servants,  who  asseverated  that  if  his 
lordship  died  they  would  take  "good  cafe  the  doctors 
should  also  ;  on  which  the  learned  men  discontinued  their 
visits,  and  the  patient  revived.  On  his  final  return  to 
Athens,  the  restoration  of  his  health  was  retarded  by  one 
of  his  long  courses  of  reducing  diet ;  he  lived  mainly  on 
rice,  and  vinegar  and  water.  From  that  city  he  writes  in 
the-  early  spring,  intii»ating  his  intention  of  proceeding 
to  Egypt ;  but  Mr.  Hanson,  his  man  of  business,  ceasing 
to  send  him  remittances,  the  scheme  was  abandoned.  Be- 
set by  letters  about  his  debts,  he  again  declares  his  deter- 
mination to  hold  fast  by  Newstead,  adding  that  if  the 
place,  which  is  his  only  tie  to  England,  is  sold,  he  w« 
come  back  at  all.  Life  on  the  shores  of  the  Archipelago 
is  far  cheaper  and  happier,  and  "  Ubi  bene  ibi  patria,"  for 
such  a  citizen  of  the  world  as  he  has  become.  Later  hfi 
went  to  Malta,  and  was  detained  there  by  another  bad 
attack  of  tertian  fever.  The  next  record  of  consequence  is 
4 


66  BVROX.  [ciiAP.  IV. 

from  tlie  "Volage"  frigate,  at  sea,  Juno  29, 1811,\vlioii  ho 
writes  in  a  des[)onfloiit  strain  to  Ilodi^xm,  that  ho  is  re- 
turning home  "  without  a  hope,  and  ahnost  without  a  de- 
sire," to  wrangl»-i*ttT>  creditors  and  hiwyers  about  execu- 
tions and  coal-piw..  "  Tn  short,  I  am  sick  and  sorry  ;  and 
when  I  have  a  Httle  repaired  my  irreparable  affairs,  away  I 
sliall  march,  citlier  to  cainpaign  in  Spain,  ot  back  again  to 
the  East,  where  I  can  at  least  htay^^-ctouTries^^^^kies  and  ff. 
cessation  from  impertinence.  I  am  sick  of  fops,  and  poesy,/ 
and  prate,  and  shall  hmye  uic  whole  CastaliancTBtate  to 
Bnfo,  or  anybody  else.  lIowTSdrt^'TTirvvcwTittea  some 
4000  lines,  of  one  kind  or  another,  on  my  travels."  With 
these,  and  a  collection  of  marbles,  and  skulls,-«Hm  hem- 
lock, and  tortoises,  and  servants,  he  reached  London  about 
the  middle  of  July,  and  remained  there,  making  some  ar- 
rangements about  business  and  publication.  On  the  23rd 
we  have  a  short  but  kind  letter  to  liis  mother,  promising 
to  pay  her  a  visit  on  lus  way  to  Rochdale.  "You  know 
you  are  a  vixen,  but  keep  some  champagne  for  me,"  he 
had  written  from  abroad.  On  receipt  of  the  letter  she  re- 
marked, "  If  I  should  be  dead  before  he  comes  down,  what 
a  strange  thing  it  would  be."  Towards  the  close  of  the 
montli  she  had  an  attack  so  alarming  that  he  was  summon- 
ed ;  but  before  he  bad  time  to  arrive  slic  had  expired,  on 
the  1st  of  August  in  a  fit  of  rage  brought  on  by  reading 
/rtli  upholsterer's  bill.  On  the  way  Byron  heard  the  intel- 
Higence,  and  wfote i;0  T)r.  Pigot :  "  I  now  feel  the  truth  of 
Mrs.  Gray's  observation,  that  we  can  only  have  07ie  mother. 
Peace  be  with  her !"  On  arriving  at  Ncwstead,  all  their 
storms  forgotten,  the  son  was  so  affected  that  he  did  not 
trust  himself  to  go  to  the  funeral,  but  stood  dreamily  gaz- 
ing at  the  cortege  from  the  gate  of  the  Abbey.  Five 
days  later,  Charles  S.  Matthews  was  drowned. 


CHAPTER  V. 

SECOND    PERIOD    OF    AUTHORSHIP. LIFE    IN    LONDON. 

CORRESPONDENCE    WITH    SCOTT. 

The  deaths  of  Long,  Wing-field,  Eddlestrne,  Matthews,  and 
of  his  mother  had  narrowed  the  circle  of  the  poet's  early 
companions ;  and,  though  he  talks  of  each  loss  in  succes- 
sion as  if  it  had  been  that  of  an  only  friend,  we  can  credit 
a  degree  of  loneliness,  and  excuse  a  certain  amount  of 
bitterness  in  the  feelings  with  which  he  returned  to  Lon- 
don. He  had  at  this  time  seen  very  little  of  the  only  rel- 
ative whom  he  ever  deeply  loved.  He  and  his  half-sister 
met  casually  in  1804,  and  again  in  the  following  year. 
After  her  marriage  (1807),  Byron  writes  from  abroad 
(ISIO),  regretting  having  distressed  her  by  his  quarrel 
with  Lord  Carlisle.  In  1811  she  is  mentioned  as  rever- 
sionary heiress  of  his  estate.  Towards  the  close  of  1813, 
there  are  two  allusions  which  testify  to  their  mutual  affec- 
tion. Next  we  come  to  the  interesting  series  of  letters  of 
1815-16,  published  with  the  Memoir  of  Mr.  Hodgson,  to 
whom,  along  with  Hobhouse  and  Scrope  Davies,  his  lord- 
ship, in  a  will  and  codicil,  T^vcs  the  management  of  his 
property.  Harness  appears  frequently  at  this  period 
among  his  surviving  intimates:  to  this  list  there  was 
shortly  added  another.  In  speaking  of  his  Bards  and 
Reviewers,  the  author  makes  occasional  reference  to  the 
possibility  of  his  being  called  to  account  for  some  of  his 


08  BYRON*.  [chap. 

attacks.  His  expectation  was  realized  by  a  letter  from 
tlic  poet  Moore,  dated  I )iil)liii,  January  1,  1810,  couched 
in  peremptory  terms,  demanding  to  know  if  his  lordship 
avowed  the  authorsliip  of  the  insults  contained  in  the 
poem.  This  letter,  being  entrusted  to  Mr.  Hodgson,  was 
not  forwarded  to  Byron  aljroad ;  but  shortly  after  his  re- 
turn, he  ri'eeived  another  in  more  conciliatory  terms,  re- 
newing the  complaint.  To  this  he  replied,  in  a  stiff  but 
manly  letter,  that  he  had  never  meant  to  insult  Mr.  Moore ; 
but  that  he  was,  if  necessary,  ready  to  give  him  satisfac- 
tion. Moore  accepting  the  explanation,  somewhat  queru- 
lously complained  of  his  advances  to  friendship  not  being 
received.  Byron  again  replied  that,  much  as  be  would 
feel  honoured  by  Mr.  Moore's  acquaintance,  he  being  prac- 
tically threatened  by  the  irate  Irishman,  could  hardly  make 
the  first  advances.  This  called  forth  a  sort  of  apology ; 
the  correspondents  met  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Rogers,  and 
out  of  the  somewhat  awkward  circumstances,  owing  to  the 
frankness  of  the  "  noble  author,"  as  the  other  ever  after 
delights  to  call  him,  arose  the  life-long  intimacy  which  had 
such  various  and  lasting  results.  Moore  has  been  called  a 
false  friend  to  Byron,  and  a  traitor  to  his  memory.  The 
judgment  is  somewhat  harsh,  but  the  association  between 
them  was  unfortunate.  Thomas  Moore  had  some  sterling 
(j\ialities.  His  best  satirical  pieces  are  inspired  by  a  real 
indignation,  and  lit  up  by  a  genuine  humour.  lie  was 
also  an  exquisite  musician  in  words,  and  must  have  been 
occasionally  a  fascinating  companion.  But  he  was  essen- 
tially a^worldling,  and,  as  such,  a  superficial  critic.  He 
encouraged  the  shallow  affectations  of  his  great  friend's 
weaker  work,  and  recoiled  in  alarm  before  the  daring  de- 
fiance of  his  stronger.  His  criticisms  on  all  Byron  wrote 
and  felt  seriously  on  religion  are  almost  worthy  of  a  con- 


T.]  SECOND  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.  69 

ventlcik  His  letters  to  others  on  Manfred,  and  Cain,  and 
DonTifnan  are  tlie  expression  of  sentiments  which  he  had' 
never  the  courage  to  state  explicitly  to  the  author.  On 
the  other  hand,  Byron  was  attracted  beyond  reasonable 
measure  by  his  gracefully  deferential  manners,  paid  too 
much  regard  to  his  opinions,  and  overestimated  his  genius. 
For  the  subsequent  destruction  of  the  memoirs,  urged  by 
Mr.  llobhouse  and  Mrs.  Leigh,  he  was  not  wholly  responsi- 
ble ;  though  a  braver  man,  having  accepted  the  position  of 
his  lordship's  literary  legatee,  with  the  express  understand- 
ing that  he  would  see  to  the  fuliilment  of  the  wishes  of 
his  dead  friend,  would  have  to  the  utmost  resisted  their 
total  frustration. 

Meanwhile,  on  landing  in  England,  the  poet  had  placed 
in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Dallas  the  Hints  from  Horace,  which 
he  intended  to  have  brought  out  by  the  publisher  Caw- 
thorne.  Of  this  performance — an  inferior  edition,  relieved 
by  a  few  strong  touches  of  the  Bards  and  Reviewers — 
Dallas  ventured  to  express  his  disapproval.  "  Have  you 
no  other  result  of  your  travels?"  he  asked;  and  got  for 
answer,  "  A  few  short  pieces,  and  a  lot  of  Spenserian  stan- 
zas; not  worth  troubling  you  with,  but  you  are  welcome 
to  them."  Dallas  took  the  remark  literally,  savy  they  were 
a  safe  success,  and  assumed  to  himself  the  merit  of  the 
discovery,  the  risks,  and  the  profits.  It  is  the  converse  of 
the  story  of  Gabriel  Harvey  and'  the  Faery  Queene.  The 
first  two  cantos  of  Childe  Harold  bear  no  comparison  with 
the  legend  of  Una  and  the  Red  Cross  Knight ;  but  there 
was  no  mistake  about  their  proof  of  power,  their  novelty, 
and  adaptation  to  a  public  taste  as  yet  unjaded  by  elo- 
quent and  imaginative  descriptions  of  foreign  scenery, 
raanners,  and  climates. 

The  poem — after  being  submitted  to  Gilford,  in  defiance 


70 


BYRON.  [lhxp. 


of  the  p  'otestations  of  tlie  autlior,  who  feared  tliat  the 
reference  nii<i;ht  seem  to  seek  the  favour  of  the  august 
Quarter/ 1/ — was  accepted  by  Mr.  Murray,  and  proceeded 
through  the  press,  subject  to  cliange  and  additions,  during 
tlie  next  five  months.  The  Hints  from  Horace,  fortunate- 
ly postponed  and  then  suspended,  appeared  posthumously 
in  1831.  Byron  remained  at  Newstead  till  the  close  of 
October,  negotiating  with  creditors  and  lawyers,  and  en- 
gaged in  a  correspondence  about  his  publications,  in  the 
course  of  which  he  deprecates  any  identification  of  him- 
self and  his  hero,  though  he  had  at  first  called  him  Childe 
Byron.  "  Instruct  Mr.  Murray,"  he  entreats,  "  not  to  call 
the  work  '  Child  of  Harrow's  Pilgrimage,'  as  he  has  done 
to  some  of  my  astonished  friends,  who  wrote  to  inquire 
after  my  sanity,  as  well  they  might."  At  the  end  of  the 
month  we  find  him  in  London,  again  indulging  in  a  voy- 
age in  "  the  ship  of  fools,"  in  which  Moore  claims  to  have 
accompanied  him;  but  at  the  same  time  exhibiting  re- 
markable shrewdness  in  reference  to  the  affairs  of  his 
household.  In  February,  1812,  he  again  declares  to  Hodg- 
son his  resolve  to  leave  England  for  ever,  and  fix  himself 
in  "  one  of  the  fairest  islands  of  the  East."  On  the  27th 
lie  made  in  tlie"  Housa^of  Lords  his  speech  on  a  Bill  to 
introduce  special  penalties  against  the  frame-breakers  of 
Nottingham.  This  effort,  on  which  he  received  many 
compliments,  led  among  other  results  to  a  friendly  corre- 
spondence with  Lord  Holland.  On  April  21  of  the  same 
year  he  again  addressed  the  House  on  behalf  of  Roman 
Catholic  Emancipation;  and  in  June,  1813,  in  favour  of 
Major  Cartwright's  petition.  On  all  these  occasions,  as 
afterwards  on  the  continent,  Byron  espoused  the  Liberal 
side  of  politics.  But  his  role  was  that  of  Manlius  or  Cae- 
sar, and  he  never  fails  to  remind  us  that  he  himself  was /or 


I 


v.]  SECOXD  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.  71 

tlie  people,  not  of  them.  His  latter  -speeches,  owing  partly 
to  his  delivery,  blamed  as  too  4-siatic,  were  less  successful. 
To  a  reader  the  three  seem  much'on  the  same  level.  They 
are  clever,  but  evidently  set  performances,  and  leave  us  no 
ground  to  suppose  that  the  poet's  abandonment  of  a  par- 
liamentary career  was  a  serious  loss  to  the  nation. 

On  the  29th  of  February  the  first  and  second  cantos  of 
Childe  Harold  appeared.  An  early  copy  was  sent  to  Mrs. 
Leigh,  with  the  inscription :  "  To  Augusta,  my  dearest  sis- 
ter and  my  best  friend,  who  has  ever  loved  me  much  bet- 
ter than  I  deserved,  this  volume  is  presented  by  her  fa- 
ther's son  and  most  affectionate  brother,  B."  The  book 
ran  through  seven  editions  in  foiir  weeks.  The  effect 
of  the  first  edition  of  Burns,  and  the  sale  of  Scott's  Lays, 
are  the  only  parallels  in  modern  poetic  literature  to  this 
success.  All  eyes  wefe^suddenty-fastened  on  the  author, 
wjj^rtet  his  satire  sleep,  and  threw  politics  aside,  to  be  the/ 
rbmancer  ofx^jis  day,  and  for  two  years  the  darling  of-  so- 
ciety:— PreTiTms-iQ_  the^trbTication,  Mr.  Moore  confesses 
to  have  gratified  his  lordship  with  the  expression  of  the 
fear  that  ^hilde  Harold  was  too  good  for  the  age.  Its 
success  was  due  to  the  reverse  being  the  truth.  It  was 
just  on  the  level  of  its  age.  Its  flowing  verse,  defaced  by 
rhymical  faults  perceptible  only  to  finer  ears,  its  prevailing 
sentiment,  occasional  boldness  relieved  by  pleasing  plati- 
tudes, its  half  affected  rakishness,  here  and  there  elevated 
by  a  rush  as  of  morning  air,  and  its  frequent  richness — 
not  yet,  as  afterwards,  splendour — of  description,  were  all 
appreciated  by  the  fashionable  London  of  the  Regency ; 
while  the  comparatively  mild  satire,  not  keen  enough  to 
scarify,  only  gave  a  more  piquant  flavour  to  the  whole. 
Byron's  genius,  yet  in  the  green  leaf,  was  not  too  far  above 
the  clever  masses  of  pleasure-loving  manhood  by  which  it 


72  BYKOX.  [<-iiAP. 

was  surrounded.  It  was  natural  that  the  address  on  the 
reopening  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre  should  be  wpttCTi  i»^ 
"  the  world's  new  joy  " — the  first  great  En^II35j[oet-pcer ; 
as  natural  as  that  in  his  only  published  satire  of  the  period 
he  should  invtigh  against  ahnost  the  only  amusement  in 
which  he  could  not  share.  The  address  was  written  at 
the  request  of  Lord  Holland,  when  of  some  hundred  com- 
petitive pieces  none  had  been  found  exactly  suitable — a 
circumstance  which  gave  rise  to  the  famous  parodies  en- 
titled The  Rejected  Addresses  —  and  it  was  thought  that 
the  ultimate  choice  would  conciliate  all  rivalry.  The  care 
which  Byron  bestowed  on  the  correction  of  the  first  draft 
of  this  piece  is  characteristic  of  his  habit  of  writing  oflE 
liis  poems  at  a  gush,  and  afterwards  carefully  elaborating 
them. 

The  Waltz  was  published  anonymously  in  April,  1813. 
It,jwas  followed  in  May  by  the  Giaour,  the  first -of-Jho 
"^--4ood  of  verse  romances  which,  during  the  three  succced- 
j  ing  years,  he  poured  forth  with^uSpetuous  fluency,  and 
I  which  were  received  with  almest-Jinrestrained  applause,. 
The  plots  and  sentiments  and  imagery  are  sIniTTar  iii  them 
all.  The  Giaour  steals  the  niisiress_of  Hassan,  who  re- 
venges his  honour  by  drowning  her.  The  Giaour  escapes; 
returns,  kills  Hassan,  and  then  goes  to  a  monastery.  In 
the  Bride  of  Ahi/dos,  published  in  the  December  of  tho 
same  year,  GiafHr  wants  to  marry  his  daughter  Zuleika  to 
Carasman  Pasha.  She  runs  off  with  Selim,  her  reputed 
brother — in  reality  her  cousin,  and  so  at  last  her  legiti- 
mate lover.  They  are  caught;  he  is  slain  in  fight;  she 
dies,  to  slow  music.  In  the  Corsair,  published  January, 
1814,  Conrad,  a  pirate,  and  man  of  "one  virtue  and  a 
tho\Usand  crimes!"  is  beloved  by  Medora,  who,  on  his 
predatory  expeditions,  sits  waiting  for  him  (like  Hassan's 


v.]  SECOND  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.  73 

and  Sisera's  motlier)  in  a  tower.  On  one  of  these  he  at- 
tacks Seyd  Pasha,  and  is  overborne  by  superior  force ;  but 
Gulnare,  a  female  slave  of  Seyd,  kills  her  master,  and  runs 
off  with  Conrad,  who  finds  Medora  dead  and  vanishes.  In 
Lara,  the  sequel  to  this-:— written  in"\\[ay  and  June,  pub- 
lished in  August — a  man  of  mystery  ajrpeArs  in  the  Morea, 
Avith  a  page,  Kaled.  After  adventures  worthy  of  Mrs. 
Radcliffe  —  from  whose  Schledoni  the  Giaour  is  said  to 
have  been  drawn — Lara  falls  in  battle  with  his  deadly  foe, 
Ezzelin,  and  turns  out  to  be  Conrad,  while  Kaled  is  of 
course  Gulnare.  The  Hebrew  Melodies,  written  in  Decem- 
ber, 1814,  are  interesting,  in  connexion  with  the  author's 
early  familiarity  with  the  Old  Testament,  and  from  the 
force  and  music  that  mark  the  best  of  them ;  but  they 
can  hardly  be  considered  an  important  contribution  to  the 
devotional  verse  of  England."  The  Siege  of  Corinth  and 
Farisina,  composed  after  his  marriage  in  the  summer  and 
autumn  of  1815,  appeared  in  the  following  year.  The 
former  is  founded  on  the  siege  of  the  city,  when  the  Turks 
took  it  from  Menotti ;  but  our  attention  is  concentrated 
on  Alp  the  renegade,  another  sketch  from  the  same  pro- 
toplastic ruffian,  who  leads  on  the  Turks,  is  in  love  with 
the  daughter  of  the  governor  of  the  city,  tries  to  save  her, 
but  dies.  The  poem  is  frequently  vigorous,  but  it  ends 
badly.  Parisina,  though  unequal,  is  on  the  whole  a  poem 
of  a  higher  order  than  the  others  of  the  period.  Tile  trial 
scene  exhibits  some  dramatic  power,  and  the  shriek  of  the 
lady  mingling  with  Ugo's  funeral  dirge  lingers  in  our  ears, 
along  with  the  convent  bells — 

"In  the  grey  square  turret  swinging, 
With  a  deep  sound,  to  and  fro, 
Heavily  to  the  heart  they  go." 

4* 


74  BYROX.  [chap. 

\        Tliese  romances  belong  to  the  same  period  of  the  au- 
,       tlior's  poetic  career  as  the  first  two  cantos  of  Chlldc  Har- 
old.    Tliev  followed  one  another  like  brilliant  fireworks, 
k    They  all  exiiibit  a  command  of  words,  a  sense  of  melody, 
)       and  a  flow  of  rhythm  and  rhyntcV-whTdPinastcred  Moore 
^       and  even  Scott  on  their  own  ground.     None  of  them  are 
?      wanting  in  passages,  as  "  lie  that  hath  bent  him  o'er  the 
\      dead,"  and  the  description  of  Alp  Icatmtg-agaiust  a  column, 
■c^hich  strike  deeper  than  any  verse  of  either  ©f  those 
writers.     But  there  is  an  air  of  melodrama  in  thcin  all. 
Harmonious  delights  o^  novel  readers,  they  will  not  stand 
igainst  the  winnowing  wind  of  deliberate  criticisip;    They 
the  same  string  without  the  varja^ens  of  a  Pa- 
V  .4''*"i'^'-     They  are  potentially  endless  reproductions  of  one 
^  l^hase  of  an  ill-regulated  mind — the  picture  of  the  same 
[/quasi-nielancholy  vengeful  man,  who  knows  no  friend  but 
and  reads   on  the  tombs  of  the  great  only   "  the 
lory  and  the  nothing  of  a  name,"  the  exile  who  cannot 
ee  from  himself,  "the  wandering  outlaw  of  his  own  dark 
mind,"  who  has  not  loved  the  world  nor  the  world  him — 


A 


"  AVhose  heart  was  fornrd  for  softness,  warp'd  by  wrong, 
Betray'd  too  early,  and  beguiled  too  long" — 

all  this,  decies  repetita,  grows  into  a  weariness  and  vexa- 
tion. Mr.  Carlyle  harshly  compares  it  to  the  screaming 
of  a  meat-jack.  The  reviewers  and  the  public  of  the  time 
thought  differently.  Jeffrey,  penitent  for  the  early /a?<j; 
pas  of  his  Revkiv,  as  Byrop  remained  penitent  for  his  an- 
swering assault,  writes  of  Lara,  *'  Passages  of  it  may  be 
put  into  competition  with  anything^iat  poetry  has  pro- 
duced in  point  either  of  pathos  or  ener^'."  Moore — who 
afterwards  wrote,  not  to  Byron, -that'seven  devils  bad  en- 
tered into  Manfred — professes  himself  "  enraptured  with 


LIFE  IN  LONDON. 


it."     Fourteen  thousand  copies  of  tl 

m  a  day.     But  hear  the  author's  own  haTF&Cfast;  fadf -ap Ol 

ogy:  '^'^  Lara  I  wrote  wliile  undressing  after  coming  home)^^/ATi 

from  balls  and  masquerades,  in  the  year  of  revelry  1814.  A// 

The  Bride  was  written  in  four,  the  Cormir  in  ten  days,  ^^c 

This  I  take  to  be  a  humiliating  confession,  as  it  proves     \ 

my  own  w-ant  of  judgment  in  publishing,  and  the  public's 

in  reading,  things  which  cannot  have  stamina  for  pjatma=-^^ 

nence. 

The  pecuniary  profits  accruing  to  Byron  from  his  works 
began  with  Lara,  for  which  he  received  YOO^.  He  had 
made  over  to  Mr.  Dallas,  besides  other  gifts  to  the  same 
ungrateful  recipient,  the  profits  of  Harold,  amounting  to 
600/.,  and  of  the  Corsair,  which  brought  52 5/.  The  pro-  ^, 
ceeds  of  the  Giaour  and  the  Bride  were  also  surrendered. 

During  this  period,  1813-1816,  he  had  become  familiar 
with  all  the  phases  of  London  society,  "  tasted  their  pleas- 
ures," and,  towards  the  close,  "  felt  their  decay."  His  as- 
sociates in  those  years  Avere  of  two  classes — men  of_the' 
-world,  and  authors.  Feted  and  courted  in  all  quarters,  he 
patronized  the  theatres,  became  in  1815  a  member  of  the 
Drury  Lane  Committee,  ''liked  the  dandies,"  including 
Beau  Brummell,  and  was  introduced  to  the  Regent.  Their 
interview,  in  June,  1812,  in  the  course  of  which  the  latter 
paid  unrestrained  compliments  to  Harold  and  the  poetry 
of  Scott,  is  naively  referred  to  by  Mr.  Moore  "  as  reflect- 
ing even  still  more  honour  on  the  Sovereign  himself  than 
on  the  two  poets."  Byron,  in  a  different  spirit,  writes  to 
Lord  Holland :  "  I  have  now  great  hope,  in  the  event  of 
Mr,  Pye's  decease,  of  warbling  truth  at  Court,  like  Mr. 
Mallet  of  indifferent  memory.  Consider,  one  hundred 
marks  a  year!  besides  the  wine  and  the  disgrace."  We 
can  hardly  conceive  the  future  author  of  the  Vision  of 


70  liYRON.  [niAP. 

Judijment  writing  odes  to  dictation.  lie  does  not  seem 
to  liave  been  much  fascinated  with  the  first  gentleman  of 
Europe,  whom  at  no  distant  date  he  assailed  in  the  terri- 
Me  "Avatar,"  and  left  the  laureateship  to  Mr.  Southey. 

Among  leaders  in  art  and  letters  he  was  brought  into 
more  or  less  intimate  contact  with  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  the 
]'](lgewortlis,  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  Coimau  the  dramatic 
author,  the  elder  Ki'an,  Monk  Lewis,  Grattan,  Curran,  and 
Madame  de  StaeJ.  Of  the  meeting  of  the  last  two  he 
marks,  "  It  was  like  the  confluence  ofJ.he  Rhone  and  the 
Saone,  and  they  were  both  so  ugly  that  I  could  not  help 
wondering  how  the  best  intellects  of  France  and  Ireland 
could  have  taken  up  respectively  such  residences." 

About  this  time  a  communication  from  Mr.  Murray,  in 
reference  to  the  meeting  witii  tlie  Pieiicnt,  led  to  a  letter 
from  Sir  Walter  Scott  to  Lord  Byron,  the  beginning  of  a 
life-long  friendship,  and  one  of  the  most  pleasing  pages  of 
biography.  These  two  great  men  were  for  a  season  per- 
lally  pitted  against  one  another  as  the  foremost  com- 
piL'titors  for  literary  favour.  When  Rokehy  came  out,  con- 
temporaneously with  the  Giaour,  the  undergraduates  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  ran  races  to  catch  the  first  copies, 
^..audlaid  bets  as  to  which  of  the  rivals  would  win.  During 
the  jinti-l>yronic  fever  of  1840-1860  they  were  perpetual- 
ly contnkted  as  the  representatives  of  the  manly  and  the 
morbid  schools./^A  later  sentimentalism  has  affected  to 
despise  the  woi%^of  both.  The  fact,  therefore,  that  from 
an  early  period  the  men  themselves  knew  each  other  as 
they  were  is  worth  illustrating. 

Scott's  letter,  in  which  a  generous  recognition  of  the 
pleasure  he  had  derived  from  the  work  of  the  English 
poet,  was  followed  by  a  manly  remonstrance  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  attack  in  the  Bards  and  Bcviewers,  drew  from 


v.]  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  SCOTT.  77 

Byron  in  the  following  month  (July,  1812)  an  answer  in 
the  same  strain,  descanting  on  the  Prince's  praises  of  the 
Lmj  and  Marmion,  and  candidly  apologizing  for  the  "  evil 
works  of  his  nonage."  "  This  satire,"  he  remarks,  "  was 
written  when  I  was  very  young  and  very  angry,  and  fully 
bent  on  displaying  my  wrath  and  my  Avit ;  and  now  I  am 
haunted  by  the  ghosts  of  my  wholesale  assertions."  This, 
in  turn,  called  forth  another  letter  to  Byron,  eager  for 
more  of  his  verses,  with  a  cordial  invitation  to  Abbotsford 
on  the  ground  of  Scotland's  maternal  claim  on  him,  and 
asking  for  information  about  Pegasus  and  Parnassus.  Af- 
ter this  the  correspondence  continues  with  greater  free- 
dom, and  the  same  display  on  either  side  of  mutual  re- 
spect. When  Scott  says,  "the  Giaour  is  praised  among 
our  mountains,"  and  Byron  returns/^  Waverloy  is  the  best 
novel  I  have  read,"  there  is  no  suspicion  of  flattery — it  is 
the  interchange  of  compliments  between  men, 

"Et  cantare  pares  et  respondere  parati." 

They  talk  in  just  the  same  manner  to  third  parties.  "  I 
gave  over  writing  romances,"  says  the  elder,  in  the  spirit 
of  a  great-hearted  gentleman,  "  because  Byron  beat  me. 
He  hits  the  mark  where  I  don't  even  pretend  to  fledge  my 
arrow.  He  has  access  to  a  stream  of  sentiment  unknown 
to  me."  The  younger,  on  the  other  hand,  deprecates  the 
comparisons  that  were  being  invidiously  drawn  between 
them.  He  presents  his  copy  of  the  Giaour  to  Scott,  with 
the  phrase,  "  To  the  monarch  of  Parnassus,"  and  compares 
the  feeling  of  those  who  cavilled  at  his  fame  to  that  of 
the  Athenians  towards  Aristides.  From  those  sentiments 
he  never  swerves,  recognizing  to  the  last  the  breadth  of 
character  of  the  most  generous  of  his  critics,  and  referring 
to  him,  during  his  later  years  in  Italy,  as  the  Wizard  and 


78  BVKOX.  [cuAP. 

the  Ariosto  of  the  North.  A  meeting  was  at  length  ar- 
ranged between  thein.  Scott  looked  forward  to  it  with 
anxious  interest,  huniorously  remarking  that  Byron  should 

say — 

"Alt  thou  the  man  whom  men  famed  Grissell  call?" 

And  he  reply — 

"Art  thou  the  still  more  famed  Tom  Thumb  the  small?" 

They  met  in  London  during  the  spring  of  1815.  The 
following  sentences  are  from  Sir  Walter's  account  of  it : 
"  Report  had  prepared  me  to  meet  a  man  of  peculiar  hab- 
its and  quick  temper,  and  I  had  some  doubts  whether  we 
were  likely  to  suit  each  other  in  society.  I  was  most 
agreeably  disappointed  in  this  respect.  I  found  Lord  By- 
ron in  the  highest  degree  courteous,  and  even  kind.  We 
met  for  an  hour  or  two  almost  daily  in  Mr.  Murray's  draw- 
ing-room, and  found  a  great  deal  to  say  to  each  other.  Our 
sentiments  agreed  a  good  deal,  except  upon  the  subjects 
of  religion  and  politics,  upon  neither  of  which  I  was  in- 
clined to  believe  that  Lord  Byron  entertained  very  fixed 
opinions.  On  politics  he  used  sometimes  to  express  a  high 
strain  of  what  is  now  called  Liberalism ;  but  it  appeared 
to  me  that  the  pleasure  it  afforded  him  as  a  vehicle  of 
displaying  his  wit  and  satire  against  individuals  in  office 
was  at  the  bottom  yf  this  habit  of  thinking.  At  heart,  I 
would  have  termed  Byron  a  patrician  on  principle.  His 
reading  did  not  seem  to  me  to  have  been  very  extensive. 
I  remember  repeating  to  him  the  fine  poem  of  ILirdyknute, 
and  some  one  asked  me  what  1  could  possibly  have  been 
telling  Byron  by  which  he  was  so  much  agitated.  I  saw 
him  for  the  last  time  in  (September)  1815,  after  I  return- 
cd  from  France;  he  dined  or  lunched  with  me  at  Longs 
in  Bond  Street.     I  never  saw  him  so  full  of  gaiety  and 


v.]  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  SCOTT.  19 

good  humour.  The  day  of  this  interview  was  the  most 
interesting  I  ever  spent.  Several  letters  passed  between 
us — one  perhaps  every  half  year.  Like  the  old  heroes  in 
Homer,  we  exchanged  gifts;  I  gave  Byron  a  beautiful 
dagger  mounted  with  gold,  which  had  been  the  property  • 
of  the  redoubted  Elfi  Bey.  But  I  was  to  play  the  part  of 
Diomed  in  the  Iliad,  for  Byron  sent  me,  some  time  after, 
a  large  sepulchral  vase  of  silver,  full  of  dead  men's  bones, 
found  within  the  land  walls  of  x\thens.  He  was  often 
melancholy,  almost  gloomy.  When  I  observed  him  in 
this  humour  I  used  either  to  wait  till  it  went  off  of  its 
own  accord,  or  till  some  natural  and  easy  mode  occurred  of 
leading  him  into  conversation,  when  the  shadows  almost 
always  left  his  countenance,  like  the  mist  arising  from  a 
landscape.  I  think  I  also  remarked  in  his  temper  starts 
of  suspicion,  when  he  seemed  to  pause  and  consider 
whether  there  had  not  been  a  secret  and  perhaps  offen- 
sive meaning  in  something  that  was  said  to  him.  In  this 
case  I  also  judged  it  best  to  let  his  mind,  like  a  troubled 
spring,  work  itself  clear,  which  it  did  in  a  minute  or  two. 
A  downright  steadiness  of  manner  was  the  way  to  his 
good  opinion.  Will  Rose,  looking  by  accident  at  his  .^ 
feetjSaw  him  scowling  furiously ;  but  on  his  showing  no 

lorrlrhip — K..jLimi!!,d  bio  caay  mauunr. — ' 
latT  liked  about  him,  besides  his  boundless  genius,  was 
his  generosity  of  spirit  as_welLas-of--pu.rse,  and  his  utter 
contempT'oTairthe  affectations  of  literattire.  He  liked  < 
Afoore  and  me  because,  with  all  our  other  differences,  we 
wei:e  both  good-natured  fellows,  not  caring  to  maintain 
'our  dignttrr^njoying  the  viot-pour-rire.  He  wrote  from 
impulse,  never  from  effort,  and  therefore  I  have  ^always 
reckoned  Burns  and  Byron  the  most  genuihe^poetic  gen- 
iuses of  my  time,  and  of  half  a  century  before  me.     We 


80  BYRON.  [cUAP. 

have  many  men  of  liij^li  poetic  talents,  but  none  of  that 
cvcr-giishiii^  and  perennial  fountain  of  natural  waters," 

Scott,  like  all  hale  men  of  sound  sense,  regretted  the  al- 
most fatal  incontinence  which,  in  the  year  of  his  greatest 
private  troubles,  led  his  friend  to  make  a  parade  of  them 
before  the  public,  lie  speaks  more  than  once  of  his  un- 
happy tendency  to  exhibit  himself  as  the  dying  gladiator, 
and  even  compares  him  to  his  peacock,  screeching  before 
his  window  because  he  chooses  to  bivouac  apart  from  his 
mate;  but  he  read  a  copy  of  the  Ravenna  diary  without 
altering  his  view  that  his  lordship  was  his  own  worst  ma- 
ligner.  Scott,  says  Lockhart,  considered  Byron  the  only 
poet  of  transcendent  talents  we  had  had  since  Dryden. 
There  is  preserved  a  curious  record  of  his  meeting  with  a 
greater  poet  than  Dryden,  but  one  whose  greatness  neither 
he  nor  Scott  suspected.  Mr.  Crabbe  Robinson  reports 
Wordsworth  to  have  said,  in  Charles  Lamb's  chambers, 
about  the  year  1808,  "These  reviewers  put  me  out  of  pa- 
tience, llere  is  a  young  man  who  has  written  a  volume 
of  poetry ;  and  these  fellows,  just  because  be  is  a  lord,  set 
upon  him.  The  young  man  will  do  something,  if  he  goes 
on  as  he  has  begun.  But  these  reviewers  seem  to  think 
that  nobody  may  write  poetry  unless  he  lives  in  a  garret." 
Years  after.  Lady  Byron,  on  being  told  this,  exclaimed, 
"  Ah,  if  Byron  had  known  that,  he  would  never  have  at- 
tacked Wordsworth,  lie  went  one  day  to  meet  him  at 
dinner,  and  I  said,  '  Well,  how  did  the  young  poet  get  on 
with  the  old  one?'  '  Wh}-,  to  tell  the  truth,'  said  he, 'I 
had  but  one  feeling  from  the  beginning  of  the  visit  to  the 
end,  and  that  was  reverence.'' "  Similarly,  he  began  by  be- 
ing on  good  terms  with  Southey,  and  after  a  meeting  at 
Holland  House,  wrote  enthusiastically  of  his  prepossessing 
apijcarance. 


v.]  THE  LAKE  SCHOOL.  81 

Byrou  and  tbe  leaders  of  the  so-called  Lake  School 
were,  at  starting,  common  heirs  of  the  revolutionary  spir- 
it ;  they  were,  either  in  their  social  views  or  personal  feel- 
ings, to  a  large  extent  influenced  by  the  most  morbid, 
though  in  some  respects  the  most  magnetic,  genius  of 
modern  France,  J.  J.  Rousseau ;  but  their  temperaments 
were  in  many  respects  fundamentally  diverse ;  and  the 
pre-established  discord  between  them  ere  long  began  to 
make  itself  manifest  in  tlieir  following  out  widely  diver- 
gent paths.  "Wordsworth's  return  to  nature  had  been  pre- 
luded by  Cowper ;  that  of  Byron  by  Burns.  The  revival 
of  the  one  ripened  into  a  restoration  of  simpler  manners 
and  old  beliefs ;  the  other  was  the  spirit  of  the  storm. 
"When  the}'  had  both  become  recognized  powers,  neither 
appreciated  the  work  of  the  other.  A  few  years  after 
this  date  Byron  wrote  of  Wordsworth,  to  a  common  ad- 
mirer of  both :  "  I  take  leave  to  differ  from  you  as  freely 
as  I  once  agreed  with  you.  His  performances,  since  the 
Lyrical  Ballads,  are  miserably  inadequate  to  the  ability 
that  lurks  within  him.  There  is,  undoubtedly,  much  nat- 
ural talent  spilt  over  the  Excursion ;  but  it  is  rain  upon 
rocks,  where  it  stands  and  stagnates ;  or  rain  upon  sand, 
where  it  falls  without  fertilizing."  This  criticism,  with 
others  in  like  strain,  was  addressed  to  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt, 
to  whom,  in  1812,  when  enduring  for  radicalism's  sake  a 
very  comfortable  incarceration,  Byron  had,  in  company 
with  Moore,  paid  a  courteous  visit. 

Of  the  correspondence  of  this  period — flippant,  trench- 
ant, or  sparkling  —  few  portions  are  more  calculated  to 
excite  a  smile  than  the  record  of  his  frequent  resolutions 
made,  reasseverated,  and  broken,  to  have  done  with  litera- 
ture ;  even  going  the  length  on  some  occasions  of  threat- 
ening to  suppress  his  works,  and,  if  possible,  recall  the  ex- 


\{\\<m 


82  ,      t  BYROX.  ^  [chap.  y. 


N 

isting  copies.  He  liiffected  being  a  man  of  tlic  world  un- 
mercifully, and  had  a  real  delight  in  clever  companions 
wlio  assumedi  the  same  role.  Frcijuent  allusion  is  made 
to  his  intcrcoikse  with  Erskine  and  Sheridan ;  tlu'  latter 
he  is  never  tirecKof  _praising,  as  "  the  author  of  the  best 
modern  comedy  {School/or  Scandal),  the  best  farce  {The 
Critic),  and  the  best  oration  (the  famous  Begum  speech) 
ever  heard  in  this  country."  They  spent  many  an  even- 
ing together,  and  probably  cracked  many  a  bottle.  It  is 
Byron  who  tells  the  story  of  Sheridan  being  found  in  a 
gutter  in  a  sadly  incapable  state ;  and,  on  some  one  asking 
"Who  is  this?"  stammering  out  "  Wilberforce."  On  one 
occasion  he  speaks  of  coming  out  of  a  tavern  with  the  dram- 
atist, when  they  both  found  the  staircase  in  a  very  cork- 
screw condition;    and  elsewhere,  of  encountering  a  Mr, 

C ,  who  "had  no  notion  of  meeting  with  a  bon-vivant 

in  a  s"cribbler,"  and  summed  the  poet's  eulogy  with  the 
phrase,  "he  drinks  like  a  man."  Hunt,  the  tattler,  who 
observed  his  lordship's  habits  in  Italy,  with  the  microscope 
of  malice  ensconced  within  the  same  walls,  makes  it  a  charge 
against  his  host  that  he  would  not  drink  like  a  man.  Once 
for  all  it  may  be  noted,  that  although  there  was  no  kind 
of  excess  in  which  Byron,  whether  from  bravado  or  incli- 
nation, failed  occasionally  to  indulge,  he  was  never  for  any 
stretch  of  time  given  over,  like  Burns,  to  what  is  techni- 
cally termed  intemperance.  His  head  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  strong,  and  under  the  influence  of  stimulants 
be  may  have  been  led  to  talk  a  great  deal  of  his  danger- 
ous nonsense.  But  though  he  could  not  say,  with  Words- 
worth, that  only  once,  at  Cambridge,  had  his  brain  been 
"excited  by  the  fumes  of  wine,"  his  prevailing  sins  were 
in  other  directions. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MARRIAGE,   AND    FAREWELL   TO    ENGLAXD. 

"  As  for  poets,"  says  Scott,  "  I  have  seen  all  the  best  of 
my  time  and  country,  and,  though  Burns  had  the  most 
glorious  eye  imaginable,  I  never  thought  any  of  them 
would  come  up  to  an  artist's  notion  of  the  character,  ex- 
cept Byron.  His  countenance  is  a  thing  to  dream  of." 
Coleridge  writes  to  the  same  effect,  in  language  even 
stronger.  "We  have  from  all  sides  similar  testimony  to 
the  personal  beauty  which  led  the  unhappiest  of  his  dev- 
otees to  exclaim,  "  That  pale  face  is  my  fate  !" 

Southern  critics,  as  De  Chasles,  Castelar,  even  Mazzini, 
have  dealt  leniently  with  the  poet's  relations  to  the  other 
sex ;  and  Elze  extends  to  him  in  this  regard  the  same  ex- 
cessive stretch  of  charity.  "  Dear  Childe  Harold,"  ex- 
claims the  German  professor,  "  was  positively  besieged  by 
women.  They  have,  in  truth,  no  right  to  complain  of 
him :  from  his  childhood  he  had  seen  them  on  their  worst 
side."  It  is  the  casuistry  of  hero-worship  to  deny  that 
Byron  was  unjust  to  women,  not  merely  in  isolated  in- 
stances, but  in  his  prevailing  views  of  their  character  and 
claims.  "  I  regard  them,"  he  says,  in  a  passage  only  dis- 
tinguished from  others  by  more  extravagant  petulance,  "as 
very  pretty  but  inferior  creatures,  who  are  as  little  in  their 
place  at  our  tables  as  they  would  be  in  our  council  cham- 
bers.   The  whole  of  the  present  system  with  regard  to  the 


84  BYRON.  [chap. 

female  sex  is  a  remnant  of  the  barbarism  of  the  chivalry 
(if  otir  fori'fatliors.  I  look  on  them  as  irrown-up  children; 
lull,  like  a  fuohsh  niaimna,  1  am  constantly  the  slave  of 
one  of  them.  The  Turks  shut  up  their  women,  and  are 
much  happier;  give  a  woman  a  looking-glass  and  burnt 
almonds,  and  she  will  be  content." 

In  contrast  with  this,  we  have  the  moods  in  wliich  he 
drew  his  pictures  of  Angiolina,  and  llaidee,  and  Aurora 
Raby,  and  wrote  the  invocations  to  the  shade  of  Astarte, 
and  his  letters  in  prose  and  verse  to  Augusta  ;  but  the 
above  passage  could  never  have  been  written  by  Chaucer, 
or  Spenser,  or  Shakspeare,  or  Slulhy.  The  class  wliom  he 
was  reviling  seemed,  however,  (Uuiiig  "  the  day  of  his  des- 
tiny," bent  on  co!ifirniing  his  judgment  by  the  blindness 
of  their  worship.  His  rank  and  fame,  the  glittering  splen- 
dour of  his  verse,  the  romance  of  his  travels,  his  pictu- 
resque melancholy  and  affectation  of  mysterious  secrets, 
combined  with  the  magic  of  his  presence  to  bewitch  and 
bewilder  them.  The  dissenting  malcontents,  condemned 
as  prudes  and  blues,  had  their  revenge.  Generally,  we 
may  say  that  women  who  had  not  written  books  adored 
Byron ;  women  who  had  written  or  were  writing  books 
distrusted,  disliked,  and  made  him  a  moral  to  adorn  their 
tales,  often  to  point  their  fables  with,  lie  was  by  the 
one  set  caressed  and  spoilt,  and  "beguiled  too  long;"  by 
the  other,  "  betrayed  too  late."  The  recent  memoirs  of 
Frances  Ann  Kemble  present  a  curious  record  of  the 
process  of  passing  from  one  extreme  to  the  other.  She 
dwells  on  the  fascination  exerted  over  her  mind  by  the 
Hist  reading  of  his  poetry,  and  tells  how  she  "fastened  on 
the  book  with  a  grip  like  steel,"  and  carried  it  off  and  hid 
it  under  her  pillow;  how  it  affected  her  "like  an  evil 
potion,"  and  stirred   her  whole  being  with  a  tempest  of 


Ti.]  MARRIAGE,  AND  FAREWELL  TO  EXGLAXD.  85 

excitement,  till  finally  she,  with  equal  weakness,  flung  it 
aside,  "  resolved  to  read  that  grand  poetry  no  more,  and 
broke  through  the  thraldom  of  that  powerful  spell."  The 
confession  brings  before  us  a  type  of  the  transitions  of  the 
century,  on  its  way  from  the  Byronic  to  the  anti-Byronic 
fever,  of  which  later  state  Mrs.  Jamieson,  Mrs.  Norton,  and 
Miss  Martineau  are  among  the  most  pronounced  repre- 
sentatives. 

Byron's  garrulity  with  regard  to  those  delicate  matters 
on  which  men  of  more  prudence  or  chivalry  are  wont  to 
set  the  seal  of  silence,  has  often  the  same  practical  effect 
as  reticence ;  for  he  talks  so  much  at  large — every  page  of 
bis  Journal  being,  by  his  own  admission,  apt  to  "  confute 
and  abjure  its  predecessor" — that  we  are  often  none  the 
wiser.  Amid  a  mass  of  conjecture,  it  is  manifest  that 
during  the  years  between  his  return  from  Greece  and 
final  expatriation  (1811 -1816),  including  the  whole  pe- 
riod of  his  social  glory — though  not  yet  of  his  solid  fame 
— he  was  lured  into  liaisons  of  all  sorts  and  shades. 
Some,  now  acknowledged  as  innocent,  were  blared  abroad 
by  tongues  less  skilled  in  pure  invention  than  in  distort- 
ing truth.  On  others,  as  commonplaces  of  a  temperament 
"all  meridian,"  it  were  w^aste  of  time  to  dwell.  Byron 
rarely  put  aside  a  pleasure  in  his  path  ;  but  his  passions 
were  seldom  unaccompanied  by  affectionate  emotions, 
genuine  while  they  lasted.  The  verses  to  the  memory  of 
a  lost  love  veiled  as  "  Thyrza,"  of  moderate  artistic  merit, 
were  not,  as  Moore  alleges,  mere  plays  of  imagination,  but 
records  of  a  sincere  grief.'  Another  intimacy  exerted  so 
much  influence  on  this  phase  of  the  poet's  career,  that  to 

'  Mr.  Trelawny  says  that  Thyrza  was  a  cousin,  but  that  on  this 
subject  Byron  was  always  reticent.  Mr.  Minto,  as  we  have  seen,  as- 
sociates her  with  the  disguised  girl  of  1807-8. 


86  BYRON.  [cuAP. 

pass  it  over  would  be  like  omitting  Vanessa's  name  from 
the  record  of  Swift.  Lady  Caroline  Lamb,  granddaughter 
of  the  first  Earl  Spencer,  was  one  of  tliu.«c  few  women  of 
our  climate  who,  by  their  romantic  impetuosity,  recall  the 
"children  of  the  sun."  She  read  Burns  in  her  ninth  year, 
and  in  her  thirteenth  idealized  AVilliam  Lamb  (afterwards 
Lord  Melbourne)  as  a  statue  of  Liberty.  In  her  nineteenth 
(1805)  she  married  him,  and  lived  for  some  years,  during 
which  she  was  a  reigning  belle  and  toast,  a  domestic  life 
only  marred  by  occasional  eccentricities.  Rogers,  whom 
in  a  letter  to  Lady  Morgan  she  numbers  among  her  lovers, 
said  she  ought  to  know  the  new  poet,  who  was  three  years 
her  juniiir,  and  the  introduction  took  place  in  March,  1812. 
iftcr  tlie  meeting,  she  wrote  in  her  journal,  "  Mad — bad 
-and  dangerous  to  know ;"  but,  when  the  fashionable 
)ollo  called  at  Melbourne  House,  she  "  flew  to  beautify 
herself."  Flushed  by  his  conquest,  he  spent  a  great  part 
of  the  following  year  in  her  company,  during  which  time 
the  apathy  or  self-confidence  of  the  husband  laughed  at  the 
worship  of  the  hero.  "  Conrad  "  detailed  his  travels  and 
adventures,  interested  her  by  his  woes,  dictated  her  amuse- 
ments, invited  her  guests,  and  seems  to  have  set  rules  to 
the  establishment.  "  Medora,"  on  the  other  hand,  made 
no  secret  of  her  devotion,  declared  that  they  were  affinities, 
and  offered  him  her  jewels.  But  after  the  first  excite- 
ment, he  began  to  grow  weary  of  her  talk  about  herself, 
and  could  not  praise  her  indifferent  verses:  "he  grew 
moody,  and  she  fretful,  when  their  mutual  egotisms  jarred." 
Byron  at  length  concurred  in  her  being  removed  for  a 
season  to  her  father's  house  in  Ireland,  on  which  occasion 
he  wrote  one  of  his  glowing  farewell  letters.  AVhen  she 
came  back,  matters  were  little  better.  Tlu;  would-be  Juliet 
beset  the   poet  with  renewed   advances,  on  one   occasion 


Ti.]  MARRIAGE,  AND  rARE\yELL  TO  ENGLAND.  87 

penetrating  to  liis  rooms  in  the  disguise  of  a  page,  on  an- 
other threatening  to  stab  herself  with  a  pair  of  scissors, 
and  again,  developing  into  a  Medea,  offering  her  gratitude 
to  any  one  who  would  kill  him.  "The  'Agnus'  is  furi- 
ous," he  writes  to  Hodgson,  in  February,  1813,  in  one  of 
the  somewhat  ungenerous  bursts  to  which  he  was  too 
easily  provoked.  "  You  can  have  no  idea  of  the  horrible 
and  absurd  things  she  has  said  and  done  since  (really  from 
the  best  motives)  I  withdrew  my  homage.  .  .  .  The  busi- 
ness of  last  summer  I  broke  off,  and  now  the  amusement 
of  the  gentle  fair  is  writing  letters  literally  threatening  my 
life."  With  one  member  of  the  family.  Lady  Melbourne, 
Mr.  Lamb's  mother,  and  sister  of  Sir  Ralph  Milbanke,  he 
remained  throughout  on  terms  of  pleasant  intimacy.  He 
appreciated  the  talent  and  sense,  and  was  ready  to  profit 
by  the  experience  and  tact  of  "  the  cleverest  of  women." 
But  her  well-meant  advice  had  unfortunate  results,  for  it 
was  on  her  suggestion  that  he  became  a  suitor  for  the  hand 
of  her  niece,  Miss  Milbanke.  Byron  first  proposed  to  this 
lady  in  1813  ;  his  offer  was  refused,  but  so  graciously  that 
they  continued  to  correspond  on  friendly,  which  gradually 
grew  into  intimate  terms,  and  his  second  offer,  towards  the 
close  of  the  following  year,  was  accepted. 

After  a  series  of  vain  protests,  and  petulant  warnings 
against  her  cousin  by  marriage,  who  she  said  was  punctual 
at  church,  and  learned,  and  knew  statistics,  but  was  "  not 
for  Conrad,  no,  no,  no !"  Lady  Caroline  lapsed  into  an  at- 
titude of  fixed  hostility ;  and  shortly  after  the  crash  came, 
and  her  predictions  were  realized,  vented  her  wrath  in  the 
now  almost  forgotten  novel  of  Glenarvon,  in  which  some 
of  Byron's  real  features  were  represented  in  conjunction 
with  many  fantastic  additions,  Madame  de  Stael  was 
kind  enough  to  bring  a  copy  of  the  book  before  his  notice 


88  BYRON.  [chap. 

when  they  met  on  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  but  he  seems  to 
Iiave  been  less  moved  by  it  than  by  most  attacks.  We 
must,  however,  bear  in  mind  his  own  admission  in  a  parallel 
case.  "I  say  I  am  perfectly  calm;  I  am,  iicvcrtlieless,  in 
a  fury."  Over  the  sad  vista  of  the  remaininL;  years  of  the 
uidiappy  lady's  life  we  need  not  linger.  During  a  con- 
siderable part  of  it  she  appears  hovering  about  the  thin 
line  that  separates  some  kinds  of  wit  and  passion  from 
madness;  writing  more  novels,  burning  her  hero's  effigy 
and  letters,  and  then  clamouring  for  a  lock  of  his  hair,  or 
a  sight  of  his  portrait ;  separated  from,  and  again  recon- 
ciled to,  a  husband  to  whose  magnanimous  forbearance 
and  compassion  she  bears  testimony  to  the  last,  comparino- 
herself  to  Jane  Shore;  attempting  Byronic  verses,  loudly 
denouncing  and  yet  never  ceasing  inwardly  to  idolize,  the 
man  whom  she  regarded  as  her  betrayer,  perhaps  only  with 
justice  in  that  he  had  unwittingly  helped  to  overthrow  her 
mental  balance.  After  eight  years  of  this  life,  lit  up  here 
and  there  by  gleams  of  social  brilliancy,  we  find  her  car- 
riage, on  the  12th  of  July,  1824,  suddenly  confronted  by 
a  funeral.  On  hearing  that  the  remains  of  Byron  were 
being  carried  to  the  tomb,  she  shrieked,  and  fainted.  Her 
health  finally  sank,  and  her  mind  gave  way  under  this 
shock;  but  she  lingered  till  January,  1828,  when  she  died, 
after  writing  a  calm  letter  to  her  husband,  and  bequeathing 
the  poet's  miniature  to  her  friend.  Lady  Morgan, 

"  I  have  paid  some  of  my  debts,  and  contracted  others," 
Byron  writes  to  Moore,  on  September  15,  1814;  "but  I 
have  a  few  thousand  pounds  which  I  can't  spend  after 
my  heart  in  this  climate,  and  so  I  shall  go  back  to  the 
south.  I  want  to  see  Venice  and  the  Alps,  and  Parmesan 
cheeses,  and  look  at  the  coast  of  Greece  from  Italy.  All 
this,  however,  depends  upon  an  event  whioh  may  or  may 


Ti.]  MARRIAGE,  AND  FAREWELL  TO  ENGLAND.  89 

not  happen.  Whether  it  will,  I  shall  probably  know  to- 
morrow ;  and  if  it  does,  I  can't  well  go  abroad  at  present." 
"  A  wife,"  he  had  written,  in  the  January  of  the  same  year, 
"  would  be  my  salvation  ;"  but  a  marriage  entered  upon 
in  such  a  flippant  frame  of  miud  could  scarcely  have  been 
other  than  disastrous.  In  the  autumn  of  the  year  we  are 
told  that  a  friend,'  observing  how  cheerless  was  the  state 
both  of  his  mind  and  prospects,  advised  him  to  marry,  and 
after  much  discussion  he  consented,  naming  to  his  corre- 
spondent Miss  Milbanke.  To  this  his  adviser  objected, 
remarking  that  she  had,  at  present,  no  fortune,  and  that 
his  embarrassed  affairs  would  not  allow  him  to  marry 
without  one,  &c.  Accordingly,  he  agreed  that  his  friend 
should  write  a  proposal  to  another  lady,  which  was  done. 
A  refusal  arrived  as  they  were  one  morning  sitting  to- 
gether. "  '  You  see,'  said  Lord  Byron, '  that  after  all  Miss 
Milbanke  is  to  be  the  person,'  and  wrote  on  the  moment. 
His  friend,  still  remonstrating  against  his  choice,  took  up 
the  letter;  but,  on  reading  it,  observed,  'Well,  really,  this 
is  a  very  pretty  letter;  it  is  a  pity  it  should  not  go.' 
'  Then  it  shall  go,'  said  Lord  Byron,  and,  in  so  saying,  seal- 
ed and  sent  off  this  fiat  of  his  fate."  The  incident  seems 
cut  from  a  French  novel ;  but  so  does  the  whole  strange 
story — the  one  apparently  insoluble  enigma  in  an  other- 
wise only  too  transparent  life.  On  the  arrival  of  the  lady's 
answer  he  was  seated  at  dinner,  when  his  gardener  came 
in  and  presented  him  with  his  mother's  wedding-ring,  lost 
many  years  before,  and  which  had  just  been  found,  buried 
in  the  mould  beneath  her  window.  Almost  at  the  same 
moment  the  letter  arrived ;  and  Byron  exclaimed,  "  K  it 
contains  a  consent  (which  it  did),  I  will  be  married  with  this 
very  ring."     He  had  the  highest  anticipations  of  his  bride, 

'  Doubtless  Moore  himself,  who  tells  the  story. 
5 


90  BYRON.  [chap. 

appreciating  her  "  talents,  and  excellent  qualities;"  and 
saying,  "  she  is  so  good  a  person  that  I  wish  I  was  a  bet- 
ter." About  the  same  date  he  writes  to  various  friends 
in  the  good  spirits  raised  by  his  enthusiastic  reception 
from  the  Cambridge  undergraduates,  when  in  the  course 
of  the  same  month  he  went  to  the  Senate  llouse  to  give 
his  vote  for  a  Professor  of  Anatomy. 

The  most  constant  and  best  of  those  friends  was  his 
sister,  Augusta  Leigh,  whom,  from  the  death  of  Miss  Cha- 
worth  to  his  own,  Byron,  in  the  highest  and  purest  sense 
of  the  word,  loved  more  than  any  other  human  being. 
Tolerant  of  errors  which  she  lamented,  and  violences  in 
which  she  had  no  share,  she  had  a  touch  of  their  common 
family  pride,  most  conspicuous  in  an  almost  cat-like  cliug- 
ing  to  their  ancestral  home.  Her  early  published  letters 
are  full  of  regi'cts  about  the  threatened  sale  of  Newstead, 
on  the  adjournment  of  which,  when  the  first  purchaser  had 
to  pay  25,000/.  for  breaking  his  bargain,  she  rejoices,  and 
over  the  consummation  of  which  she  mourns,  in  the  man- 
ner of  Milton's  Eve — 

"Must  I  then  leave  tlice,  Paradise?" 

In  all  her  references  to  the  approaching  marriage  there 
are  blended  notes  pf  hope  and  fear.  In  thanking  Hodgson 
for  his  kind  congratulations,  she  trusts  it  will  secure  her 
brother's  happiness.  Later  she  adds  her  testimony  to  that 
of  all  outsiders  at  this  time,  as  to  the  graces  and  genuine 
worth  of  the  object  of  his  choice.  After  the  usual  pre- 
liminaries, the  ill-fated  pair  were  united,  at  Seaham  House, 
on  the  2nd  of  January,  1815.  Byron  was  married  like 
one  walking  in  his  sleep.  He  trembled  like  a  leaf,  made 
the  wrong  responses,  and  almost  from  the  first  seems  to 
liavc  been  conscious  of  his  irrevocable  mistake. 


VI.]         MAKEIAGE,  AKD  FAREWELL  TO  ENGLAND. 

"  I  saw  him  stand 
Before  an  altar  with  a  gentle  bride : 
Her  face  was  fair,  but  was  not  that  which  made 
The  starlight  of  his  boyhood.     He  could  see 
Not  that  which  was — but  that  which  should  have  been — 
But  the  old  mansion,  the  accustom'd  hall. 
And  she  who  was  his  destiny  came  back. 
And  thrust  herself  between  him  and  the  light." 


Here  we  have  faint  visions  of  Miss  Chaworth,  mingling 
with  later  memories.  In  handing  the  bride  into  the  car- 
riage he  said,  "  Miss  Milbanke,  are  you  ready  ?" — a  mis.take 
said  to  be  of  evil  omen.  Byron  never  really  loved  his 
wife ;  and  though  he  has  been  absurdly  accused  of  marry- 
ing for  revenge,  we  must  suspect  that  he  married  in  part 
for  a  settlement.  On  the  other  band,  it  is  not  unfair  to 
say  that  she  was  fascinated  by  a  name,  and  inspired  by 
the  philanthropic  zeal  of  reforming  a  literary  Corsair. 
Both  were  disappointed.  Miss  Milbanke's  fortune  was 
mainly  settled  on  herself  ;^and  Byron,  in  spite  of  plentiful 
resolutions,  gave  little  sign  of  reformation.  For  a  con- 
siderable time  their  life,  which,  after  the  "  treacle  moon," 
as  the  bridegroom  called  it,  spent  at  Halnaby,  near  Darling- 
ton, was  divided  between  residence  at  Seaham  and  visits 
to  London,  seemed  to  move  smoothly.  In  a  letter,  evi- 
dently mis-dated  the  15th  December,  Mrs.  Leigh  writes  to 
Hodgson  :  "  I  have  every  reason  to  think  that  my  beloved 
B.  is  very  happy  and  comfortable.  I  hear  constantly  from 
him  and  his  rib.  It  appears  to  me  that  Lady  B,  sets  about 
making  him  happy  in  the  right  way.  I  had  many  fears. 
Thank  God  that  they  do  not  appear  likely  to  be  realized. 
In  short,  there  seems  to  me  to  be  but  one  drawback  to  all 
our  felicity,  and  that,  alas,  is  the  disposal  of  dear  Ncwstead. 
I  never  shall  feel  reconciled  to  the  loss  of  that  sacred  re- 


92  nVKO.V.  [chap. 

vcTcd  Abbey.     The  tlioui,flit  makes  mc  more  melancholy 
than  perhaps  the  loss  of  an  inanimate  object  out^ht  to  do. 
Did  you  ever  hear  that  landed  ]>ropcrt>j,  the  gift  of  the 
Crown,  could  not  be  sold  ?     Lady  B.  writes  me  word  that 
she  never  saw  her  father  and  mother  so  happy ;  that  she 
believes  the  latter  would  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea  her- 
self to  find  fish  for  B.'s  dinner,  «kc."     Augusta  Ada  was 
born  in  London  on  the  10th  of  December,  1815.     During 
the  next  months  a  few  cynical  mutterings  are  the  only  in- 
terruptions to  an  ominous  silence ;  but  these  could  be  easi- 
ly explained  by  the  increasing  embarrassment  of  the  poet's 
affaii-s,  and  the  importunity  of  creditors,  who  in  the  course 
of  the  last  half-year  had  served  seven  or  eight  executions 
on  his  house  and  furniture.    Their  expectations  were  raised 
by  exaggerated  reports  of  his  having  married  money ;  and 
by  a  curious  pertinacity  of  pride  he  still  declined,  even 
when  he  had  to  sell  his  books  to  accept  advances  from  his 
publisher.     In  January  the  storm  which  had  been  secretly 
gathering  suddenly  broke.      On  the  15th,  ?.  c,  five  weeks 
after  her  daughter's  birth,  Lady  Byron  left  home  with  the 
infant  to  pay  a  visit,  as  had  been  agreed,  to  her  own  fam- 
ily at  Kirkby  Mallory,  in  Leicestershire.     On  tlic  way  she 
despatched  to  her  husband  a  tenderly  playful  letter,  which 
has  been  often  quoted.    Shortly  afterwards  he  was  inform- 
ed— first  by  her  father,  and  then  by  herself — that  she  did 
not  intend  ever  to  return  to  him.     The  accounts  of  their 
last  interview,  as  in  the   whole  evidence  bearing  on  the 
affair,  not  only  differ,  but  flatly  contradict  one   another. 
On  behalf  of  Lord  Byron  it  is  asserted  that  his  wife,  infu- 
riated by  his  offering  some  innocent  hospitality  on  occa- 
sion of  bad  weather  to  a  respectable  actress,  Mrs.  Mardvn, 
who  had  called  on  him  about  Drury  Lane  business,  ruslied 
into  the  room,  exclaiming,  "  I  leave  you  for  ever  " — and  did 


VI.]         MARRIAGE,  AND  FAREWELL  TO  ENGLAND.  93 

so.  Ac6ording  to  another  story,  Lady  Byron,  finding  him 
with  a  friend,  and  observing  him  to  be  annoyed  at  her  en- 
trance, said,  "Am  I  in  your  way,  Byron?"  whereupon  he 
answered,  "Damnably."  Mrs.  Leigh,  Hodgson,  Moore, 
and.  others  did  everything  that  mutual  friends  could  do 
to  bring  about  the  reconciliation  for  which  Byron  himself 
professed  to  be  eager,  but  in  vain ;  and  in  vain  the  effort 
was  renewed  in  later  years.  The  wife  was  inveterately 
bent  on  a  separation,  of  the  causes  of  which  the  husband 
alleged  he  was  never  informed,  and  with  regard  to  which 
as  long  as  he  lived  she  preserved  a  rigid  silence. 

For  some  time  after  the  event  Byron  spoke  of  his  wife 
with  at  least  apparent  generosity.  Rightly  or  wrongly, 
he  blamed  her  parents,  and  her  maid — Mrs.  Clermont,  the 
theme  of  his  scathing  but  not  always  dignified  "Sketch;" 
but  of  herself  he  wrote  (March  8,  1816),  "I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  there  ever  was  a  brighter,  and  a  kinder,  or  a 
more  amiable  or  agreeable  being  than  Lady  Byron.  I 
never  had  nor  can  hav^e  any  reproach  to  make  to  her, 
when  with  me."  Elsewhere  he  adds,  that  he  would  will- 
ingly, if  he  had  the  chance,  "  renew  his  marriage  on  a 
lease  of  twenty  years."  But  as  time  passed  and  his  over- 
tures were  rejected,  his  patience  gave  way,  and  in  some 
of  his  later  satires  he  even  broke  the  bounds  of  courtesy. 
Lady  Byron's  letters  at  the  time  of  the  separation,  espe- 
cially those  first  published  in  the  Academy  of  July  19, 
1879,  are  to  Mrs.  Leigh  always  affectionate  and  confiden- 
tial, often  pathetic,  asking  her  advice  "  in  this  critical  mo- 
ment," and  protesting  that,  "  independent  of  malady,  she 
does  not  think  of  the  past  with  any  spirit  of  resentment, 
and  scarcely  with  the  sense  of  injury."  In  her  communi- 
cations to  Mr.  Hodgson,  on  the  other  hand — the  first  of 
almost  the  same  date,  the  second  a  few  weeks  later — she 


1>1  BYRON.  [chap. 

writes  with  intense  bitterness,  stating  that  her  action  was 
due  to  offences  which  she  could  only  condone  on  the  sup- 
position of  her  husband's  insanity,  and  distinctly  iniplvinijj 
that  she  was  in  danger  of  her  life.  This  supposition  hav- 
ing been  by  her  medical  advisers  pronounced  erroneous, 
she  felt,  in  the  words  only  too  pungently  recalled  in  Don 
Juan,  that  her  duty  both  to  man  and  God  prescribed  her 
course  of  action.     Uer  playful  letter  on  leaving  she  seems 

^      to  defend  on  the  ground  of  the  fear  of  persona^  violence. 

L_Till  LoTll  Byronsdc;itli  tlie  intiniac)'  between  his  wife 
and  sister  remained  unbroken ;  through  the  latter  he  con- 
tinued to  send  numerous  messages  to  the  former,  and  to 
his  child,  who  became  a  ward  in  Chancery ;  but  at  a  later 
date  it  began  to  cool.  On  the  appearance  of  Lady  By- 
ron's letter,  in  answer  to  Moore's  first  volume,  Augusta 
speaks  of  it  as  "  a  despicable  tirade ;"  feels  "  disgusted  at 
such  unfeeling  conduct ;"  and  thinks  "nothing  can  justify 
any  one  in  defaming  the  dead."  Soon  after  1830  they 
had  an  open  rupture  on  a  matter  of  business,  whicli  wjis 
never  really  healed,  though  the  then  Puritanic  precisian 
sent  a  message  of  relenting  to  Mrs.  Leigh  on  her  death- 
bed (1851). 

The  charge  or  charges  which,  during  her  husband's  life, 
Lady  Byron  from  magnanimity  or  otlier  motive  reserved, 
she  is  ascertained,  after  his  death,  to  have  delivered  with 
important  modifications  to  various  persons,  with  little  re- 
gard to  their  capacity  for  reading  evidence  or  to  their  dis- 
cretion. On  one  occasion  her  choice  of  a  confidante  was 
singularly  unfortunate.  "These,"  wrote  Lord  Byron  in 
his  youth,  "these  are  the  first  tidings  that  have  ever 
sounded  like  fame  in  my  ears — to  be  rc(hle  on  the  banks 
of  the  Ohio."  Strangely  enough,  it  is  from  the  country 
of  Washington,  whom  the  poet  was  wont  to  reverence  as 


Ti.]  MARRIAGE,  AND  FAREWELL  TO  ENGLAND.  95 

the  purest  patriot  of  tlie  modern  world,  tbat  in  1869  there 
emanated  the  hideous  story  which  scandalized  both  conti- 
nents, and  ultimately  recoiled  on  the  retailer  of  the  scandal. 
The  grounds  of  the  reckless  charge  have  been  weighed  by  / 
those  who  have  wished  it  to  prove  false,  and  by  those  who/ 
have  wished  it  prove  true,  and  found  wanting.     The  chaff 
has  been  beaten  in  every  way  and  on  all  sides,  without 
yielding  a  particle  of  grain ;  and  it  were  ill-advised  to  rake 
up  the  noxious  dust  that  alone  remains.     From  nothing 
left  on  record  by  either  of  the  two  persons  most  intimate- 
ly  concerned_iaJi-w€^enve-aftj-Ttilhlble  mformation.     It   {La 
is  plain  that  Lady  ByrOTTwas  during  tnB4*tar  years  of  her    jp 
life  the  victim  of  hallucinations,  and  that  if  Byron  kne\iL.  P 
the  secret,  which  he  denies,  he  did  not  choose  to  tell 
putting  off  Captain  Medwin  and  others  with  absurdities, 
as  that  "  He  did  not  like  to  see  women  eat,"  or  with  com- 
monplaces, as  "  The  causes,  my  dear  sir,  were  too  simple  to 
be  found  out." 

Thomas  Moore,  who  had  the  Memoirs'  supposed  to  have 
thrown  light  on  the  mystery,  in  the  full  knowledge  of  Dr. 
Lushington's  judgment  and  all  the  gossip  of  the  day,  pro- 
fesses to  believe  that  "  the  causes  of  disunion  did  not  dif- 
fer from  those  that  loosen  the  links  of  most  such  mar- 
riages," and  writes  several  pages  on  the  trite  theme  that 
great  genius  is  incompatible  with  domestic  happiness. 
Negative  instances  abound  to  modify  this  sweeping  gen- 
eralization ;  but  there  is  a  kind  of  genius,  closely  associ- 
ated with  intense  irritability,  which  it  is  difficult  to  sub- 
ject to  the  most  reasonable  yoke;  and  of  this  sort  was 
Byron's.  His  valet,  Fletcher,  is  reported  to  have  said  that 
"Any  woman  could  manage  my  lord,  except  my  lady;" 
and  Madame  De  Stael,  on  reading  the  Farewell,  that  "  She 

'  Captain  Trelawny,  however,  doubts  if  he  ever  read  them. 


90  BYROX.  [.!IAP. 

would  liavL'  been  glad  to  have  been  in  Lady  Byron's  place." 
liiit  it  may  be  doubted  if  Byron  would  have  made  a  good 
husband  to  any  woman  ;  his  wife  and  he  were  even  more 
than  usually  ill-assorted.  A  model  of  the  proprieties,  and 
a  pattern  of  the  learned  philanthropy  of  which  in  her  sex 
lie  wjis  wont  to  make  a  constant  butt,  she  was  no  fit  con- 
sort for  that  "  mens  insana  in  corpore  insano."  What 
could  her  placid  temperament  conjecture  of  a  man  whom 

.  T  .she  saw,  in  one  of  his  fits  of  passion,  throwing  a  favourite 

^  watch  under  the  fire,  and   grinding  it  to   pieces   with  a 

poker?     Or  how  could  her  conscious  virtue  tolerate  the 

-rl'ourring  irregularities  which  he  was  accustomed  not  only 

to  permit  himself  but  to  parade?     The  harassment  of  his 

MafTairs  stimulated  his  violence,  till  she  was  inclined  to  sus- 
^^ect  him  to  be  mad.  Some  of  her  recently  printed  let- 
ters— as  that  to  Lady  Anne  Barnard,  and  the  re})orts  of 
later  observers  of  her  character — as  William  llowitt,  tend 
to  detract  from  the  earlier  tributes  to  her  consistent  amia- 
bility, and  confirm  our  ideas  of  the  incompatibility  of  the 
pair.  It  must  have  been  trying  to  a  poet  to  be  asked  by 
liis  wife,  impatient  of  Ids  late  hours,  when  he  was  going 
to  leave  off  writing  verses ;  to  be  told  he  had  no  real  en- 
thusiasm ;  or  to  have  his  desk  broken  open,  and  its  com- 
promising contents  sent  to  the  persons  for  whom  they 
were  least  intended.  The  smouldering  elements  of  dis- 
content may  have  been  fanned  by  the  gossip  of  depend- 
ants, or  the  officious  zeal  of  relatives,  and  kindled  into  a 
jealous  flame  by  the  ostentation  of  regard  for  others  be- 
yond the  circle  of  his  home.  Lady  Byron  doubtless  be- 
lieved some  story  which,  when  communicated  to  her  legal 
advisers,  led  them  to  the  conclusion  that  the  mere  fact  of 
her  believing  it  made  reconciliation  impossible  ;  and  the 
inveterate  obstinacy  which   lurked  beneath   her  gracious 


VI.]  MARRIAGE,  AND  FAREWELL  TO  ENGLAND.  9*7 

exterior  made  Ler  cling  through  life  to  the  substance — 
not  always  to  the  form,  whatever  that  may  have  been — of 
her  first  impressions.  Her  later  letters  to  Mrs.  Leigh,  as 
that  called  forth  by  Moore's  Z^/e,  are  certainly  as  open  to 
the  charge  of  self-righteousness,  as  those  of  her  husband's 
are  to  self-disparagement. 

Byron  himself  somewhere  says,  "  Strength  of  endurance 
is  worth  all  the  talent  in  the  world."  "  I  love  the  virtues 
that  I  cannot  share."  His  own  courage  was  all  active  ;  he 
had  no  power  of  sustained  endurance.  At  a  time  when 
his  proper  refuge  was  silence,  and  his  prevailing  sentiment 
— for  he  admits  he  was  somehow  to  blame — should  have' 
been  remorse,  he  foolishly  vented  his  anger  and  his  grief 
in  verses,  most  of  them  either  peevish  or  vindictive,  and 
some  of  which  he  certainly  permitted  to  be  publishec 
"  Woe  to  him,"  exclaims  Voltaire,  "  who  says  all  he  could 
on  any  subject !"  Woe  to  him,  he  might  have  added, 
who  says  anything  at  all  on  the  subject  of  his  domestic 
troubles !  The  poet's  want  of  reticence  at  this  crisis 
started  a  host  of  conjectures,  accusations,  and  calumnies, 
the  outcome,  in  some  degree  at  least,  of  the  rancorous 
jealousy  of  men  with  whose  adulation  he  was  weary. 
Then  began  that  burst  of  British  virtue  on  which  Macau- 
lay  has  expatiated,  and  at  which  the  social  critics  of  the 
continent  have  laughed.  Cottle,  Cato,  Oxoniensis,  Delia, 
and  Styles  were  let  loose,  and  they  anticipated  the  Satur- 
day and  the  Spectator  of  1869,  so  that  the  latter  might 
well  have  exclaimed,  "  Pereant  qui  ante  nos  nostra  dixe- 
runt."  Byron  was  accused  of  every  possible  and  impossi- 
ble vice.  He  was  compared  to  Sardanapalus,  Nero,  Tibe- 
rius, the  Duke  of  Orleans,  Heliogabalus,  and  Satan — all  the 
most  disreputable  persons  mentioned  in  sacred  and  pro- 
fane history ;  his  benevolences  were  maligned,  his  most 
5* 


98  BYRON.  .  [chap. 

disinterested  actions  perverted,  Mrs,  Mardyn,  the  actress, 
was  on  liis  account,  on  one  occasion,  driven  off  the  pubHc 
stage,  lie  was  advised  not  to  go  to  the  theatres,  lest  he 
should  be  hissed  ;  nor  to  Parliament,  lest  he  should  be  in- 
sulted. On  the  very  day  of  his  departure  a  friend  told 
liim  that  he  feared  violence  from  mobs  assembling  at  the 
door  of  his  carriage.  "  Upon  what  grounds,"  the  poet 
writes,  in  an  incisive  survey  of  the  circumstances,  in  Au- 
gust, 1819,  "the  public  formed  their  opinion,  I  am  not 
aware ;  but  it  was  general,  and  it  was  decisive.  Of  me 
and  of  mine  they  knew  little,  except  that  I  had  written 
poetry,  was  a  nobleman,  had  married,  became  a  father,  and 
was  involved  in  differences  with  my  wife  and  her  relatives 
— no  one  knew  why,  because  the  persons  complaining  re- 
fused to  state  their  grievances, 

"  The  press  was  active  and  scurrilous ;  .  .  .  my  name 
— which  had  been  a  knightly  or  a  noble  one  since  my  fa- 
thers helped  to  conquer  the  kingdom  for  "William  the 
Norman — was  tainted,  I  felt  that,  if  what  was  whispered 
and  muttered  and  murmured  was  true,  I  was  unfit  for  Eng- 
land ;  if  false,  England  was  unfit  for  me.  I  withdrew ; 
but  this  was  not  enough.  In  other  countries — in  Switz- 
erland, in  the  shadow  of  the  Alps,  and  by  the  blue  depth 
of  the  lakes — I  was  pursued  and  breathed  upon  by  the 
same  blight,  I  crossed  the  mountains,  but  it  was  the 
same  ;  so  I  went  a  little  farther,  and  settled  myself  by  the 
waves  of  the  Adriatic,  like  the  stag  at  bay,  who  betakes 
himself  to  the  waters." 

On  the  16th  of  April,  1816,  shortly  before  his  depart- 
ure, he  wrote  to  Mr.  Rogers  :  "  My  sister  is  now  with  me, 
and  leaves  town  to-morrow.  We  shall  not  meet  again 
for  some  time,  at  all  events,  if  ever  (it  was  their  final  meet- 
ing), and  under  these  circumstances  I  trust  to  stand  ex- 


Ti.]         MARRIAGE,  AND  FAREWELL  TO  ENGLAND.  99 

cused  to  you  and  Mr.  Sheridan  for  being  unable  to  wait 
upon  bim  this  evening."  In  all  this  storm  and  stress,  By- 
ron's one  refuge  was  in  the  affection  which  rises  like  a 
well  of  purity  amid  the  passions  of  his  turbid  life. 

"  In  the  desert  a  fountain  is  springing, 
In  the  wild  waste  there  still  is  a  tree; 
And  a  bird  in  the  solitude  singing, 
That  speaks  to  my  spirit  of  thee." 

The  fashionable  world  was  tired  of  its  spoilt  child,  and 
he  of  it.  Hunted  out  of  the  country,  bankrupt  in  purse 
and  heart,  he  left  it,  never  to  return  ;  but  he  left  it  to  find 
fresh  inspiration  by  the  "  rushing  of  the  arrowy  Khone," 
and  under  Italian  skies  to  write  the  works  which  have  im- 
mortalized his  name. 


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borough). 

Lady  Cai 

CHAPTER  VII. 

LIFE    ABROAD. SWITZERLAND    TO    VENICE. THIRD    PERIOD 

OF  AUTHORSHIP. CHILDE  HAROLD,  IIL,  IV. MANFRED. 

On  the  25tli  of  April,  1816,  Byron  embarked  for  Ostend. 
From  the  "  burning  marl "  of  the  staring  streets  he  planted 
his  foot  again  on  the  deck  with  a  genuine  exultation. 

"  Once  more  upon  the  waters,  yet  once  more, 
And  the  waves  bound  beneath  me  as  a  steed 
That  knows  her  ridei'.     Welcome  to  the  roar !" 

But  he  brought  with  him  a  relic  of  English  extravagance, 
setting  out  on  his  land  travels  in  a  huge  coach,  copied 
from  that  of  Napoleon  taken  at  Genappe,  and  being  ac- 
companied by  Fletcher,  Rushton,  Berger,  a  Swiss,  and  an 
Italian  physician,  called  Polidori,  son  of  Alfieri's  secreta- 
ry— a  man  of  some  talent  but  fatal  conceit.  A  question 
arises  as  to  the  source  from  which  he  obtained  the  means 
for  these  and  subsequent  luxuries,  in  striking  contrast  with 
Goldsmith's  walking-stick,  knapsack,  and  flute.  Byron's 
financial  affairs  are  almost  inextricably  confused.  We  can, 
for  instance,  nowhere  find  a  clear  statement  of  the  result 
of  the  suit  regarding  the  Rochdale  Estates,  save  that  he 
lost  it  before  the  Court  of  Exchequer,  and  that  his  appeal 
to  the  House  of  Lords  was  still  unsettled  in  1822.  The 
sale  of  Newstead  to  Colonel  Wildman  in  1818,  for  90,000/., 
went  mostly  to  pay  off  mortgages  and  debts.     In  April, 


102  BYRON.  [chap. 

1819,  Mrs.  Lcii^li  writes,  after  a  last  sigh  over  this  event: 
"  Sixty  thousand  pounds  was  seeurcd  by  his  (Byron's) 
inarriaiijc  settk'inent,  the  interest  of  which  he  receives  for 
life,  and  which  ou<;ht  to  make  him  very  comfortable." 
This  is  unfortunately  decisive  of  the  fact  that  he  did  not 
in  spirit  adhere  to  tlie  resolution  expressed  to  Moore  never 
to  touch  a  farthing  of  his  wife's  money,  though  we  may 
accept  his  statement  to  Medwin,  that  he  twice  repaid  the 
dowry  of  10,000/.  brought  to  him  at  the  marriage,  as  in 
so  far  diminishing  the  obligation.  None  of  the  ca[)ital  of 
Lady  Byron's  family  came  under  his  control  till  1822, 
when,  on  the  death  of  her  mother.  Lady  Noel,  Byron  ar- 
ranged the  appointment  of  referees — Sir  Francis  Burdett 
on  his  behalf.  Lord  Dacre  on  his  wife's.  The  result  was 
an  equal  division  of  a  property  worth  about  7000/.  a  year. 
AVhile  in  Italy,  the  poet  received,  besides,  about  10,000/. 
for  his  writings  —  4000/.  being  given  for  Childe  Harold 
(iii.,  iv.)  and  Manfred.  "Ne  pas  6tre  dupe"  was  one  of 
his  determinations,  and,  though  lie  began  by  caring  little 
for  making  money,  he  was  always  fond  of  spending  it. 
"  I  tell  you  it  is  too  much,"  he  said  to  Murray,  in  return- 
ing a  thousand  guineas  for  the  Corinth  and  Parhina. 
Hodgson,  Moore,  Bland,  Thomas  Ashe,  the  family  of  Lord 
Falkland,  the  British  Consul  at  Venice,  and  a  host  of  oth- 
ers were  ready  to  testify  to  his  superb  nmnificence.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  would  stint  his  pleasures,  or  his  benev- 
olences, which  were  among  them,  for  no  one ;  and  when  he 
found  that  to  spend  money  he  had  to  make  it,  lie  saw 
neither  rhyme  nor  reason  in  accepting  less  than  his  due. 
Li  1817  ho  begins  to  dun  Murray,  declaring,  with  a  frank- 
ness in  which  we  can  find  no  fault,  "  You  offer  1500  guin- 
eas for  the  new  canto  (C.  H.,  iv.).  I  won't  take  it.  I  ask 
2500  guineas  for  it,  which  you  will  either  give  or  not,  as 


VII.]  SWITZERLAND.  103 

you  tliiuk  proper."  During  tlie  remaining  years  of  his  life 
he  grew  more  and  more  exact,  driving  hard  bargains  for 
his  houses,  horses,  and  boats,  and  fitting  himself,  had  he 
lived,  to  be  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  the  newly-lib- 
erated State,  from  which  he  took  a  bond  securing  a  fair 
interest  for  his  loan.  He  made  out  an  account  in  £  s.  d. 
against  the  ungrateful  Dallas,  and  when  Leigh  Hunt  threat- 
ened to  sponge  upon  him,  he  got  a  harsh  reception ;  but 
there  is  nothing  to  countenance  the  view  that  Byron  was 
ever  really  possessed  by  the  "good  old  gentlemanly  vice" 
of  which  he  wrote.  The  Skimpoles  and  Chadbands  of  the 
world  are  always  inclined  to  talk  of  filthy  lucre  :  it  is 
equally  a  fashion  of  really  lavish  people  to  boast  that  they 
are  good  men  of  business. 

"We  have  only  a  few  glimpses  of  Byron's  progress.  At 
Brussels  the  Napoleonic  coach  was  set  aside  for  a  more 
serviceable  caleche.  During  his  stay  in  the  Belgian  capi- 
tal he  paid  a  visit  to  the  scene  of  Waterloo,  wrote  the  fa- 
mous stanzas  beginning,  "  Stop,  for  thy  tread  is  on  an  em- 
pire's dust !"  and,  in  unpatriotic  prose,  recorded  his  im- 
pressions of  a  plain  which  appeared  to  him  to  "  want  little 
but  a  better  cause  "  to  make  it  vie  in  interest  with  those 
of  Platea  and  Marathon. 

The  rest  of  his  journey  lay  up  the  Rhine  to  Basle,  thence 
to  Berne,  Lausanne,  and  Geneva,  where  he  settled  for  a 
time  at  the  Hotel  Secheron,  on  the  western  shore  of  the 
lake.  Here  began  the  most  interesting  literary  relation- 
ship of  his  life,  for  here  he  first  came  in  contact  with  the 
impassioned  Ariel  of  English  verse,  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley. 
They  lived  in  proximity  after  they  left  the  hotel,  Shelley's 
headquarters  being  at  Mont  Alegre,  and  Byron's  for  the 
remainder  of  the  summer  at  the  Villa  Diodati ;  and  their 
acquaintance  rapidly  ripened  into  an  intimacy  which,  with 


104  BYRON.  [cuAP. 

some  interruptions,  extended  over  tlie  six  remaining  years 
of  their  joint  lives.  The  phice  for  an  estimate  of  their 
mutual  intiucncc  belongs  to  the  time  of  their  Italian  part- 
nership. Meanwhile,  we  hear  of  them  mainly  as  fellow- 
excursionists  about  the  lake,  which  on  one  occasion,  de- 
parting from  its  placid  poetical  character,  all  but  swallowed 
them  both,  along  with  Ilobhouse,  off  Meillerie.  "  The 
boixt,"  says  Byron,  "  was  nearly  wrecked  near  the  very 
spot  where  St.  Preux  and  Julia  were  in  danger  of  being 
drowned.  It  would  have  been  classical  to  have  been  lost 
there,  but  not  agreeable.  I  ran  no  risk,  being  so  near  the 
rocks  and  a  good  swimmer;  but  our  party  were  wet  and 
incommoded."  The  only  anxiety  of  Shelley,  who  could 
not  swim,  was,  that  no  one  else  should  risk  a  life  for  his. 
Two  such  revolutionary  or  such  brave  poets  were,  in  all 
probability,  never  before  nor  since  in  a  storm  in  a  boat 
together.  During  this  period  Byron  complains  of  being 
still  persecuted.  "  I  \vasjna\vri'tclied  state  of  health  and 
worse  spirits  when  I  was  in  Geneva;  but  quiet  and  tlie 
lake  —  better  physicians  than  I'oliduri  —  soon  set  me  up. 
TT never  led  so  moral  a  life  as  during  my  residence  Tn  tl7at 
country,  but  I  gained  no  credit  by  it.  On  the  contrary, 
there  is  no  story  so  absurd  that  they  did  not  invent  at  my 
cost.  I  was  watched  by  glasses  on  the  opposite  side  of  tho 
lake,  and  by  glasses,  too,  that  must  have  had  very  distorted 
optics.  I  was  waylaid  in  my  evening  drives.  I  believo 
they  looked  upon  me  as  a  man-monster."  Shortly  after 
his  arrival  in  Switzerland  he  contracted  an  intimacy  with 
Miss  Clairmont,  a  daughter  of  Godwin's  second  wife,  and 
consequently  a  connexion  by  marriage  of  the  Shelleys, 
with  whom  she  was  living,  which  resulted  in  the  birth  of 
a  daughter,  Allegra,  at  Great  Mario w,  in  February,  1817. 
The  noticeable  events  of  the  following  two  months  arc 


VII.]  SWITZERLAND.  105 

a  joint  excursion  to  Charaonni,  and  a  visit  in  July  to 
Madame  de  Stael  at  Coppet,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
met  Frederick  Schlegel.  During  a  Avet  week,  when  the 
families  were  reading  together  some  German  ghost  stories, 
an  idea  occurred  of  imitating  them,  the  main  result  of 
which  was  Mrs.  Shelley's  Frankenstein.  Byron  contrib- 
uted to  the  scheme  a  fragment  of  The  Vampire,  after- 
wards completed  and  published  in  the  name  of  his  patron 
bv  Polidori.  This  eccentric  physician  now  began  to  de- 
velope  a  vein  of  half  insanity  ;  his  jealousy  of  Shelley  grew 
to  such  a  pitch  that  it  resulted  in  the  doctor's  sending  a 
challenge  to  the  poet.  Shelley  only  laughed  at  this ;  but 
Byron,  to  stop  further  impertinences  of  the  kind,  remark- 
ed, "Recollect  that,  though  Sbelley  has  scruples  about  duel- 
ling, I  have  none,  and  shall  be  at  all  times  ready  to  takel 
his  place."  Polidori  had  ultimately  to  be  dismissed,  and^ 
after  some  years  of  absurd  adventure,  committed  suicide. 

The  Shelleys  left  for  England  in  September,  and  Byron 
made  an  excursion  with  Hobhouse  through  the  Bernese 
Oberland.  They  went  by  the  Col  de  Jaman  and  the 
Simmenthal  to  Thun ;  then  up  the  valley  to  the  Staub- 
bach,  which  he  compares  to  the  tail  of  the  pale  horse  in 
the  Apocalypse  —  not  a  very  happy,  though  a  striking 
comparison.  Thence  they  proceeded  over  the  Wengern 
to  Grindehvald  and  the  Rosenlau  glacier ;  then  back  by 
Berne,  Friburg,  and  Yverdun  to  Diodati.  The  following 
passage  in  reference  to  this  tour  may  be  selected  as  a 
specimen  of  his  prose  description,  and  of  the  ideas  of 
mountaineering  before  the  days  of  the  Alpine  Club  :^ 

"Before  ascending  the  mountain,  went  to  the  torrent 
again,  the  sun  upon  it  forming  a  rainbow  of  the  lower 
part,  of  all  colours,  but  principally  purple  and  gold,  the  bow 
moving  as  you  move.     I  never  saw  anything  like  this  ;  it 


106  BYRON.  [ciiAi-. 

is  only  in  the  sunsliine.  .  .  .  Left  the  huisLS,  tuok  off  my 
coat,  and  went  to  the  summit,  7000  English  feet  above  the 
level  uf  the  sea,  and  5000  feet  above  the  valley  we  left  in 
the  morning.  On  one  side  our  view  comprised  the  Jung- 
frau,  with  all  iier  glaciers;  then  the  Dent  d' Argent, shining 
like  truth  ;  then  tlie  Eighers  and  the  Wetterhorn.  Heard 
the  avahinches  falling  every  five  minutes.  From  where 
we  stood  on  the  Weugern  Alp  we  had  all  these  in  view 
on  one  side ;  on  the  other,  the  clouds  rose  up  from  the 
opposite  valley,  curling  up  perpendicular  prfccipices,  like 
the  foam  of  the  ocean  of  hell  during  a  spring  tide;  it  was 
white  and  sulj)hury,  and  immeasurably  deep  in  appear- 
ance. .  .  .  Arrived  at  the  Grindelwald;  dined;  mounted 
again,  and  rode  to  the  higher  glacier — like  a  frozen  hurri- 
cane ;  starlight  beautiful,  but  a  devil  of  a  path.  Pass- 
ed whole  woods  of  withered  pines,  all  withered;  trunks 
stripped  and  barkless,  branches  lifeless ;  done  by  a  single 
winter.  Their  appearance  reminded  me  of  me  and  my 
family." 

Students  of  Manfred  will  recognize  whole  sentences, 
only  slightly  modified  in  its  verse.  Though  Byron  talks 
with  contempt  of  authorship,  there  is  scarce  a  fine  i)hrasc 
in  his  letters  or  journal  which  is  not  pressed  into  the 
author's  service,  lie  turns  his  deepest  griefs  to  artistic 
gain,  and  uses  five  or  six  times,  for  literary  purposes,  the 
expression  wliich  seems  to  have  dropped  from  him  natu- 
rally about  his  household  gods  being  shivered  on  his 
hearth.  Ilis  account  of  this  excursion  concludes  with  a 
passage  equally  characteristic  of  his  melancholy  and  inces- 
sant self-cons^ciousness: — 

"In  the  weather  for  this  tour  I  have  been  very  fortu- 
nate. ...  I  was  disposed  to  be  pleased.  I  am  a  lover 
of  nature,  &c.  .  .  .  But  in  all  this  the  recollection  of  bit- 


VII.]  SWITZERLAND.  107 

terness,  and  more  especially  of  recent  and  more  home 
desolation,  which  must  accompany  me  through  life,  have 
preyed  upon  me  here ;  and  neither  the  music  of  the  shep- 
herd, the  crashing  of  the  avalanche,  the  torrent,  the  moun- 
tain, the  glacier,  the  forest,  nor  the  cloud,  have  for  one 
moment  lightened  the  weight  upon  my  heart,  nor  enabled 
me  to  lose  my  own  wretched  identity  in  the  majesty,  and 
the  power,  and  the  glory  around,  above,  and  beneath  me." 
Such  egotism  in  an  idle  man  would  only  provoke  im- 
patience ;  but  Byron  was,  during  the  whole  of  this  period, 
almost  preternaturally  active.  Detained  by  bad  weather 
at  Ouchy  for  two  days  (June  26, 27),\he  wrote  the  Pris- 
oner of  Chillon,  which,  with  his  noble  introductory  sonnet 
on  Bonuivard,  in  some  respects  surpasses  any  of  his  early 
romances.     The  opening  lines — 

"  Lake  Leman  lies  by  Chillon's  walls ; 
A  thousand  feet  in  depth  below, 
Its  massy  waters  meet  and  flow  " — 

bring  before  us  in  a  few  words  the  conditions  of  a  hope- 
less bondage.  The  account  of  the  prisoner  himself,  and  of 
the  lingering  deaths  of  the  brothers ;  the  first  frenzy  of 
the  survivor,  and  the  desolation  which  succeeds  it — 

"  I  only  loved  :  I  only  drew 
The  accursed  breath  of  dungeon  dew  " — 

the  bird's  song  breaking  on  the  night  of  his  solitude ;  his 
growing  enamoured  of  despair,  and  regaining  his  freedom 
with  a  sigh,  are  all  strokes  from  a  master  handy  From 
the  same  place,  at  the  same  date,  he  announces  to  Mur- 
ray the  completion  of  the  third  canto  of  Childe  Harold. 
The  productiveness  of  July  is  portentous.  During  that 
month  he  wrote  the  Monody  on  Sheridan,  The  Dream^ 


108  BYRON.  [cuAP. 

Churcliiirs  Grave,  tlio  Sonnet  to  Lake  Lcmun,  Could  I 
remount  the  Jiiver  of  mi/  Veurs,  part  of  Manfred,  Prome- 
theus, the  Stanzas  to  Augusta,  bcgiiinirn;, 

"My  sister!  my  sweet  sister!     If  a  name 
Dearer  and  purer  were,  It  should  be  thine;" 

and  the  terrible  dream  of  JJurkncss,  wliirh  at  least  in  the 
ghastly  power  of  the  close,  where  the  survivors  meet  by 
the  lurid  light  of  a  dim  altar  fire,  and  die  of  each  other's 
hideousness,  surpasses  Campbell's  Last  Man.^  At  Lau- 
sanne the  poet  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  haunts  of  Gib- 
bon, broke  a  sprig  from  his  acacia -tree,  and  carried  off 
some  rose  leaves  from  his  garden.  Though  entertaining 
friends,  among  tliem  Mr.  M.  G.  Lewis  and  Scrope  Davies, 
he  systematically  shunned  "  the  locust  swarm  of  English 
tourists,"  remarking  on  their  obtrusive  platitudes ;  as  when 
he  heard  one  of  them  at  Chamouni  inquire,  "  Did  you 
ever  see  anything  more  truly  rural  ?"  Ultimately  he  got 
tired  of  the  Calvinistic  Genevese — one  of  whom  is  said  to 
liave  swooned  as  he  entered  the  room — and  early  in  Octo- 
ber set  out  with  Hobhouse  for  Italy.  They  crossed  the 
Simplon,  and  proceeded  by  tlie  Lago  Maggiore  to  Milan, 
admiring  the  pass,  but  slighting  the  somewhat  hothouse 
beauties  of  the  Borromean  Islands.  From  Milan  he  writes, 
pronouncing  its  cathedral  to  be  only  a  little  inferior  to 
that  of  Seville,  and  delighted  with  "  a  correspondence,  all 
original  and  amatory,  between  Lueretia  Borgia  and  Car- 
dinal Bembo."  lie  secured  a  lock  of  the  golden  hair  of 
the  Tope's  daughter,  and  wished  himself  a  cardinal. 

At  Verona,  Byron  dilates  on  the  amphitheatre,  as  sur- 
passing anything  he  had  seen  even  in  Greece,  and  on  the 

'  This  only  appeared  in  1831,  but  Campbell  elaiins  to  have  given 
Byron  in  conversation  the  suggestion  of  the  sulgeot. 


vu]  SWITZERLAND  TO  VENICE.  109 

faith  of  the  people  in  the  story  of  Juliet,  from  whose  re- 
puted tomb  he  sent  some  pieces  of  granite  to  Ada  and  his 
nieces.  In  November  we  find  him  settled  in  Venice,  "  the 
greenest  isle  of  his  imagination."  There  he  began  to  form 
those  questionable  alliances  which  are  so  marked  a  feature 
of  his  life,  and  so  frequent  a  theme  in  his  letters,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  pass  them  without  notice.  The  first  of  his 
temporary  idols  was  Mariana  Segati,  "  the  wife  of  a  mer- 
chant of  Venice,"  for  some  time  his  landlord.  With  this 
woman,  whom  he  describes  as  an  antelope  with  oriental 
eyes,  wavy  hair,  a  voice  like  the  cooing  of  a  dove,  and  the 
spirit  of  a  Bacchante,  he  remained  on  terras  of  intimacy 
for  about  eighteen  months,  during  Avhich  their  mutual  de- 
votion was  only  disturbed  by  some  outbursts  of  jealousy. 
In  December  the  poet  took  lessons  in  Armenian,  glad  to 
find  in  the  study  something  craggy  to  break  his  mind 
upon.  He  translated  into  that  language  a  portion  of  St. 
Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  Notes  on  the  carnival, 
praises  of  Christabel,  instructions  about  the  printing  of 
Childe  Harold  (iii.),  protests  against  the  publication  under 
his  name  of  some  spurious  "  domestic  poems,"  and  con- 
stant references,  doubtfully  domestic,  to  his  Adriatic  lady, 
fill  up  the  records  of  1816.  On  February  15,  1817,  he 
announces  to  Murray  the  completion  of  the  first  sketch  of 
Manfred,  and  alludes  to  it  in  a  bantering  manner  as  "  a 
kind  of  poem  in  dialogue,  of  a  wild  metaphysical  and  in- 
explicable kind ;"  concluding,  "  I  have  at  least  rendered  it 
qtdte  imjjossible  for  the  stage,  tor  "vy'liich  my  intercourse 
■with  Drury  Lane  has  given  me  the  greatest  contempt." 

About  this  time  Byron  seems  to  have  entertained  the 
idea  of  returning  to  England  in  the  spring,  i.  e.,  after  a 
year's  absence.  This  design,  however,  was  soon  set  aside, 
partly  in  consequence  of  a  slow  malarial  fever,  by  which 


IK^  BYRON.  [chap. 

he  was  prostrated  for  several  weeks.  On  his  partial  recov- 
ery, attributed  to  his  having  had  neither  medicine  nor 
doctor,  and  a  determination  to  live  till  he  had  "put  one 
or  two  people  out  of  the  world,"  he  started  on  an  expedi- 
tion to  R(Muc. 

His  first  stage  was  Arqua ;  then  Ferrara,  where  he  was 
inspired,  by  a  sight  of  the  Italian  poet's  prison,  with  the 
Lament  of  Tasso  ;  the  next,  Florence,  where  he  describes 
himself  as  drunk  with  the  beauty  of  the  galleries.  Among 
TTie  pictures,  he  was  most  impressed  with  the  mistresses  of 
llaphael  and  Titian,  to  wIkjui,  along  with  Giorgione,  hcls 
always  reverential ;  and  he  recognized  in  Santa  Crocc  the 
"^West minster  Abbey  of  Italy.  l*assing  through  Folignd, 
hcTTJIlclied  Ills  destination  early  in  May,  and  met  his  old 
friends.  Lord  Lansdowne  and  Ilobhouse.  The  poet  em- 
ployed his  short  time  at  Rome  in  visiting  on  horseback 
the  most  famous  sites  in  the  city  and  neighbourhood — as 
the  Alban  Mount,  Tivoli,  Frascati,  the  Falls  of  Terni,  and 
the  Clitumnus — re-easting  the  crude  first  draft  of  the  third 
act  of  Manfred,  ;iiid  sitting  for  his  bust  to  Thorwaldsen. 
Of  this  sitting  the  sculptor  afterwards  gave  some  account 
to  his  compatriot,  Hans  Andersen  :  "  Byron  placed  him- 
self opposite  to  me,  but  at  once  began  to  put  on  a  quite 
different  expression  from  that  usual  to  him.  '  Will  you 
not  sit  still  V  said  I.  *  You  need  not  assume  that  look.' 
'  That  is  my  expression,'  said  Byron.  '  Indeed,'  said  I ; 
and  I  then  represented  him  as  I  wished.  When  the  bust 
was  finished  he  said,  '  It  is  not  at  all  like  me ;  my  expres- 
sion is  more  unhappy.'  "  West,  the  American,  who  five 
years  later  painted  his  lordship  at  Leghorn,  substantiates 
the  above  half-satirical  anecdote,  by  the  remark,  "  He  was 
a  bad  sitter ;  he  assumed  a  countenance  that  did  not  be- 
long to  him,  as  though  he  were  thinking  of  a  frontispiece 


TIL]  THIRD  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.  Ill 

for  Childe  Harold.''''  Thorwaldsen's  bust,  tLe  first  cast  of 
which  was  sent  to  Hobhouse,  and  pronounced  by  Mrs. 
Leigh  to  be  the  best  of  the  numerous  likenesses  of  her 
brother,  was  often  repeated.  Professor  Brandes,  of  Co- 
penhagen, introduces  his  striking  sketch  of  the  poet  by  a 
reference  to  the  model,  that  has  its  natural  place  in  the 
museum  named  from  the  great  sculptor  whose  genius  had 
flung  into  the  clay  the  features  of  a  chai-acter  so  unlike 
his  own.  The  bust,  says  the  Danish  critic,  at  first  sight 
impresses  one  with  an  undefinable  classic  grace ;  on  closer 
examination,  the  restlessness  of  a  life  is  reflected  in  a  brow 
over  which  clouds  seem  to  hover,  but  clouds  from  which 
we  look  for  lightnings.  The  dominant  impression  of  the 
whole  is  that  of  some  irresistible  power  (Unwiderstehlich- 
keit).  Thorwaldsen,  at  a  much  later  date  (1829-1833), 
executed  the  marble  statue,  first  intended  for  the  Abbey, 
which  is  now  to  be  seen  in  the  library  of  Trinity  College, 
in  evidence  that  Cambridge  is  still  proud  of  her  most  brill- 
iant son. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  month — after  almost  fainting 
at  the  execution  by  guillotine  of  three  bandits — he  pro- 
fesses impatience  to  get  back  to  Mariana,  and  early  in 
the  next  we  find  him  established  with  her  near  Venice, 
at  the  villa  of  La  Mira,  where  for  some  time  he  continued 
to  reside.  His  letters  of  June  refer  to  the  sale  of  New- 
stead,  the  mistake  of  Mrs.  Leigh  and  others  in  attributing 
to  him  the  Tales  of  a  Landlord,  the  appearance  of  Lalla 
Rookh,  preparations  for  Marino  Faliero,  and  the  progress 
of  Childe  Harold  (iv.).  This  poem,  completed  in  Septem- 
ber, and  published  early  in  1818  (with  a  dedication  to 
Hobhouse,  who  had  supplied  most  of  the  illustrative 
notes),  first  made  manifest  the  range  of  the  poet's  power. 
Only  another  slope  of  ascent  lay  between  him  and  the 


112  BYROX.  [chap 

pinnacle,  over  wliioh  sliinos  the  red  star  of  Cain.  Had 
Lurd  IJyron's  public  career  closed  when  he  left  Ent^iaiul, 
he  would  have  been  remembered  for  a  generation  as  the 
author  of  some  musical  minor  verses,  a  clever  satire,  a 
journal  in  verse  exhibiting  flashes  of  genius,  and  a  series 
of  fascinating  romances  —  also  giving  promise  of  higher 
power — which  had  enjoyed  a  marvellous  popularity.  The 
third  and  fourth  cantos  of  Childe  Harold  placed  him  on 
another  platform,  that  of  the  Dii  Majores  of  English 
verse.  These  cantos  arc  separated  from  their  predeces- 
sors, not  by  a  stage,  but  by  a  gulf.  Previous  to  their 
publication  he  had  only  shown  how  far  the  force  of  rhap- 
sody could  go;  now  he  struck  witli  his  right  hand,  and 
from  the  shoulder.  Knowledge  of  life  and  study  of  Nat- 
ure were  the  mainsprings  of  a  growth  which  the  indirect 
influence  of  Wordsworth,  and  the  happy  companionship 
of  Shelley,  played  their  part  in  fostering.  Faultlcssness  is 
seldom  a  characteristic  of  impetuous  verse,  never  of  By- 
ron's; (and  even  in  the  later  parts  of  the  ChUdc  there  are 
careless  lines  and  doubtful  images.  "  Self-exiled  Harold 
wanders  forth  again,"  looking  "  pale^and  interesting;"  but 
we  are  soon  refreshed  by  a  higher  note^  No  familiari- 
ty can  detract  from  "  Waterloo,"  which  holds  its  own  by 
Barbour's  "  Bannockburn  "  and  Scott's  "  Flodden."  Sir 
Walter,  referring  to  the  climax  of  the  opening,  and  the 
pathetic  lament  of  the  closing  lines,  generously  doubts 
whether  any  verses  in  English  surpass  them  in  vigour. 
There  follows  "The  Broken  Mirror,"  extolled  by  Jeffrey 
with  an  appreciation  of  its  exuberance  of  fancy  and  neg- 
ligence of  diction  ;  and  then  the  masterly  sketch  of  Na- 
poleon, with  the  implied  reference  to  the  writer  at  the 
end. 
(The  descriptions  in  botli  cantos  perpetually  rise  from 


Til]  THIRD  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.  113 

a  basis  of  rhetoric  to  a  real  height  of  poetry.  Byron's 
"  Rhine  "  flows,  like  the  river  itself,  in  a  stream  of  "  exult- 
ing and  abounding  "  stauzasy^  His  "  Venice  "  may  be  set 
beside  the  masterpieces  of  Ruskin's  prose.  They  are  to- 
gether the  joint  pride  of  Italy  and  England.  (.The  tem- 
pest in  the  third  canto  is  in  verse  a  splendid  microcosm 
of  the  favourite,  if  not  the  prevailing  mood,  of  the  writer's 
mind.  In  spite  of  manifest  flaws,  the  nine  stanzas  begin- 
ning "It  is  the  hush  of  night,"  have  enough  in  them  to 
feed  a  high  reputation.  The  poet's  dying  day,  his  sun 
and  moon  contending  over  the  RhcEtian  hill,  his  Thras- 
ymene,  Clituranus,  and  Velino,  show  that  his  eye  has 
grown  keener,  and  his  imagery  at  least  more  terse,  and 
that  he  can  occasionally  forget  himself  in  his  surround- 
ings. The  Drachenfells,  Ehrenbreitstein,  the  Alps,  Lake 
Leraan,  pass  before  us  like  a  series  of  dissolving  views. 
But  the  stability  of  the  book  depends  on  its  being  a  Tem- 
ple of  Fame,  as  well  as  a  Diorama  of  Scenery,  j  It  is  no 
mere  versified  Guide,  because  every  resting-place  in  the 
pilgrimage  is  made  interesting  b}'  association  with  illustri- 
ous memories.  Coblentz  introduces  the  tribute  to  Mar- 
ceau ;  Clarcns  an  almost  complete  review,  in  five  verses,  of 
Rousseau ;  Lausanne  and  Ferney  the  quintessence  of  criti- 
cism on  Gibbon  and  Voltaire.  A  torab  in  Arqua  suggests 
Petrarch  ;  the  grass-grown  streets  of  Ferrara  lead  in  the 
lines  on  Tasso ;  the  white  walls  of  the  Etrurian  Athens 
bring  back  Alfieri  and  Michael  Angelo,  and  the  prose  bard 
of  the  hundred  tales,  and  Dante,  "  buried  by  the  upbraid- 
ing shore,"  and 

"  The  starry  Galileo  and  his  woes." 

Byron  has  made  himself  so  master  of  the  glories  and 
the  wrecks  of  Rome,  that  almost  everything  else  that  has 
6 


lU  BYROX.  [chap. 

been  said  of  them  seems  superfluous. )i  Ilawtborne,  in  liis 
Marble  Faun,  comes  nearest  to  liini ;  but  Byron's  Gladia- 
tor and  Apollo,  if  not  liis  Laocoon,  are  unequalled.  "The 
voice  of  Marius,"  says  Scott,  "  could  not  sound  more  deep 
and  solemn  among  the  ruins  of  Cartilage  than  the  strains 
of  the  pilgrim  among  the  broken  shrines  and  fallen  stat- 
ues of  her  subduer."([  As  the  third  c.uito  has  a  fitting 
close  with  the  poet's  pathetic  remembrance  of  his  daugh- 
ter, so  the  fourth  is  wound  up  with  consummate  art — the 
memorable  dirge  on  the  Princess  Charlotte  being  followed 
by  the  address  to  the  sea,  which,  enduring  unwrinkled 
through  all  its  ebbs  and  flows,  seems  to  mock  at  the  muta- 
bility of  human  life.) 

Manfred,  his  witch  drama,  as  the  author  called  it,  has 
had  a  special  attraction  for  inquisitive  biographers,  be- 
cause it  has  been  supposed  in  some  dark  manner  to  reveal 
the  secrets  of  his  prison-house.  Its  lines  have  been  tort- 
ured, like  the  witches  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to  ex- 
tort from  them  the  meaning  of  the  "all  nameless  hour," 
and  every  conceivable  horror  has  been  alleged  as  its  motif. 
On  this  subject  Goethe  writes  with  a  humorous  simplici- 
ty:  "This  singularly  intellectual  poet  has  extracted  from 
my  Faust  the  strongest  nourishment  for  his  hypochon- 
dria; but  he  has  made  use  of  the  impelling  principles 
for  his  own  purposes. . .  .  When  a  bold  and  enterprising 
young  man,  he  won  the  affections  of  a  Florentine  lady. 
Her  husband  discovered  the  amour,  and  murdered  his 
wife;  but  the  murderer  was  the  same  night  found  dead 
in  the  street,  and  there  was  no  one  to  whom  any  sus- 
picion could  be  attached.  Lord  Byron  removed  from 
Florence,  but  these  spirits  have  haunted  him  all  his 
life.  This  romantic  incident  explains  innumerable  allu- 
sions," €.  g., 


vu.]  THIKD  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.  115 

"  I  have  shed 
Blood,  but  not  hers ;  and  yet  her  blood  was  shed." 

Were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  poet  had  never  seen  the  \ 
city  in  question  when  he  wrote  the  poem,  this  explanation  \ 
would  be  more  plausible  than  most  others,  for  the  allu- 
sions are  all  to  some  lady  who  has  been  done  to  death. 
Gait  asserts  that  the  plot  turns  on  a  tradition  of  unhallow- 
ed necromancy — a  human  sacrifice,  like  that  of  Antinous 
attributed  to  Hadrian.  Byron  himself  says  it  has  no  plot ; 
but  he  kept  teasing  his  questioners  with  mysterious  hints,\  \^ 
e.  [/.,  "  It  was  the  Staubbach  and  the  Jungfrau,  and  some- 
thing else  more  than  Faustus,  which  made  me  write  Man- 
fred  ;"  and  of  one  of  his  critics  be  says  to  Murray,  "  It 
had  a  better  origin  than  he  can  devise  or  divine,  for  the 
soul  of  him."  In  any  case  most  methods  of  reading  be- 
tween its  lines  would,  if  similarly  applied,  convict  Sopho- 
cles, Schiller,  and  Shelley  of  incest,  Shakspeare  of  murder, 
Milton  of  blasphemy,  Scott  of  forgery,  Marlowe  and  Goe- 
the of  compacts  with  the  de\il.  Byron  was  no  dramatist, 
but  he  had  wit  enough  to  vary  at  least  the  circumstances 
of  his  projected  personality.  The  memories  of  both  Fausts 
— the  Elizabethan  and  the  German — mingle,  in  the  pages 
of  this  piece,  with  shadows  of  the  author's  life ;  but  to 
these  it  never  gives,  nor  could  be  intended  to  give,  any 
substantial  form. 

Manfred  is  a  chaos  of  pictures,  suggested  by  the  sce- 
nery of  Lauterbrunnen  and  Grindelwald,  half  animated  byi 
vague  personifications  and  sensational  narrative.  Like 
Harold  and  Scott's  Mannion,  it  just  misses  being  a  great 
poem.  The  Coliseum  is  its  masterpiece  of  description  i 
the  appeal,  "  Astarte,  my  beloved,  speak  to  me,"  its  nearest] 
approach  to  pathos.  The  lonely  death  of  the  hero  makes' 
an  effective  close  to  the  moral  tumult  of  the  preceding 


116  BYRON.  [ciup, 

scenes.  But  the  reflections,  often  striking,  are  seldom  ab- 
solutely fresh  :  that  beginning, 

"  Tlio  iniml,  wliiili  is  immortal,  makes  itself 
Uciiuital  fur  its  f:;ood  or  evil  thoughts, 
Is  its  own  ori<^iii  of  ill  and  end, 
And  its  own  plueo  and  time," 

is  transplanted  from  Milton  with  as  little  change  as  Milton 
made  in  transplanting  it  from  Marlowe.  The  author's  own 
favourite  passage,  the  invocation  to  the  sun  (act  iii.,  sc.  2), 
has  some  sublimity,  marred  by  lapses.  The  lyrics  scatter- 
ed through  the  poem  sometimes  open  well,  e.  <7., — 

"  Mont  Hlanc  is  the  monareli  of  mountains ; 
They  crowned  him  long  ago. 
On  a  throne  of  rocks,  in  a  rolje  of  clouds, 
With  a  diadem  of  snow  ;" 

but  they  cannot  sustain  themselves  like  true  song-birds, 
and  fall  to  the  ground  like  spent  rockets.  This  applies  to 
Byron's  lyrics  generally ;  turn  to  the  incantation  in  the 
Deformed  Transformed :  the  first  two  lines  arc  in  tune — 

"  Beautiful  shadow  of  Thetis's  boy, 
Who  sleeps  in  the  meadow  whose  grass  grows  o'er  Troy." 

Nor  Sternhold  nor  Hopkins  has  more  ruthlessly  outraged 
our  ears  than  the  next  two — 

"  From  the  red  earth,  like  Adam,  thy  likeness  I  shape. 
As  the  Being  who  made  him,  whose  actions  I  ape(l)" 

Of  his  songs :  "  There  be  none  of  Beauty's  daughters," 
"  She  walks  in  beauty,"  "  Maid  of  Athens,"  **  I  enter  thy 
garden  of  roses,"  the  translation  "  Sons  of  the  Greeks," 
and  others,  have  a  flow  and  verve  that  it  is  pedantry  to 


Til.]  THIRD  PERIOD  OF  AUTHORSHIP.  117 

ignore ;  but  in  general  Byron  was  too  mucli  of  the  earth 
earthy  to  be  a  great  lyrist.  Some  of  the  greatest  have 
lived  wild  lives,  but  their  wings  were  not  weighted  with 
the  lead  of  the  love  of  the  world. 

The  summer  and  early  months  of  the  autumn  of  1817 
were  spent  at  La  Mira,  and  much  of  the  poet's  time  was 
occupied  in  riding  along  the  banks  of  the  Brenta,  often  in 
the  company  of  the  few  congenial  Englishmen  who  came  in 
his  way  ;  others,  whom  he  avoided,  avenged  themselves  by 
retailing  stories,  none  of  which  were  "  too  improbable  for 
the  craving  appetites  of  their  slander-loving  countrymen." 
In  August  he  received  a  visit  from  Mr.  llobhouse,  and  on 
this  occasion  drew  up  the  remarkable  document  afterwards 
given  to  Mr.  M.  G.  Lewis  for  circulation  in  England,  which 
appeared  in  the  Academy  of  October  9,  1869.  In  this 
document  he  says,  "  It  has  been  intimated  to  me  that  the 
persons  understood  to  be  the  legal  advisers  of  Lady  Byron 
have  declared  their  lips  to  be  sealed  up  on  the  cause  of  the 
separation  between  her  and  myself.  If  their  lips  are  seal- 
ed up  they  are  not  sealed  up  by  me,  and  the  greatest  fa- 
vour they  can  confer  upon  me  will  be  to  open  them."  He 
goes  on  to  state  that  he  repents  having  consented  to  the 
separation — will  be  glad  to  cancel  the  deed,  or  to  go  be- 
fore any  tribunal  to  discuss  the  matter  in  the  most  public 
manner ;  adding,  that  Mr.  Hobhouse  (in  whose  presence  he 
was  writing)  proposed,  on  his  part,  to  go  into  court,  and 
ending  with  a  renewed  asseveration  of  his  ignorance  of  the 
allegations  against  him,  and  his  inability  to  understand  for 
what  purpose  they  had  been  kept  back,  "'unless  it  was  to 
sanction  the  most  infamous  calumnies  by  silence."  Hob- 
house  and  others,  during  the  four  succeeding  years,  inef- 
fectually endeavoured  to  persuade  the  poet  to  return  to 
England.     Moore  and  others  insist  that  Byron's  heart  was 


118  BYRON.  [chap. 

at  home  when  his  presence  was  abroad,  and  that,  with  all 
lier  faults,  he  loved  his  country  still.  Leigh  Hunt,  on  the 
contrary,  a>^serts  that  he  cared  nothing  for  England  or  its 
allairs.  Like  many  men  of  genius,  13yron  was  never  satis- 
fied with  what  he  had  at  the  time.  "Roma?  Tibur  amem 
ventosus  Tibure  Roniam."  At  Seaham  he  is  borod  to 
death,  and  pants  for  the  e.vcitement  of  the  clubs;  in  Lon- 
don society  he  longs  for  a  desert  or  island  in  the  Cyclades; 
after  their  separation,  he  begins  to  regret  his  wife ;  after 
his  exile,  his  countr}-.  "  Where,"  he  exclaimed  to  llob- 
liouse,  "  is  real  comfort  to  be  found  out  of  England  ?" 
He  frequently  fell  into  the  mood  in  which  he  wrote  the 
verse — 

"  Yet  I  was  bom  whore  men  are  proud  to  be, 
Not  without  cause ;  and  should  I  k^ave  behind 
Th'  immortal  island  of  the  sage  and  free, 
And  seek  me  out  a  home  by  a  remoter  sea  ?" 

But  the  following,  to  Murray  (June  7,  1819),  is  equally 
sincere:  "Some  of  the  epitaphs  at  Ferrara  pleased  me 
more  than  the  more  splendid  monuments  of  Bologna ;  for 
instance — 

" '  Martini  Luigi 
Implora  pace.' 

" '  Lucrezia  Picini 

Implora  cterne  quiete.' 

Can  anything  be  more  full  of  pathos  ?  These  few  words 
say  all  that  can  be  said  or  sought;  the  dead  had  had 
enough  of  life ;  all  they  wanted  was  rest,  and  this  they 
implore.  There  is  all  the  helplessness,  and  humble  hope, 
and  death-like  prayer  that  can  arise  from  the  grave — 'im- 
plora pace.'     I  hope,  whoever  may  survive  me,  and  shall 


vn.]  LIFE  AT  VENICE.  119 

see  me  put  in  the  foreigner's  burying-ground  at  the  Lido, 
within  the  fortress  by  the  Adriatic,  will  see  these  two 
words,  and  no  more,  put  over  me.  I  trust  they  won't 
think  of  pickling  and  bringing  me  home  to  Clod,  or  Blun- 
derbuss Hall.  I  am  sure  my  bones  would  not  rest  in  an 
English  grave,  or  my  clay  mix  with  the  earth  of  that  coun- 
try." Hunt's  view  is,  in  this  as  in  other  subtle  respects, 
nearer  the  truth  than  Moore's;  for  with  all  Byron's  in- 
sight into  Italian  vice,  he  hated  more  the  master  vice  of 
England — hypocrisy ;  and  much  of  his  greatest,  and  in  a 
sense  latest,  because  unfinished  work,  is  the  severest,  as  it 
might  be  the  wholesomest,  satire  ever  directed  against  a 
great  nation  since  the  days  of  Juvenal  and  Tacitus. 

In  September  (1817)  Byron  entered  into  negotiations, 
afterwards  completed,  for  renting  a  country  house  among 
the  Euganean  hills  near  Este,  from  Mr.  Hoppner,  the  Eng- 
lish Consul  at  Venice,  who  bears  frequent  testimony  to  his 
kindness  and  courtesy.  In  October  we  find  him  settled 
for  the  winter  in  Venice,  where  he  first  occupied  his  old 
quarters  in  the  Spezieria,  and  afterwards  hired  one  of  the 
palaces  of  the  Countess  Mocenigo  on  the  Grand  Canal. 
Between  this  mansion,  the  cottage  at  Este,  and  the  villa 
of  La  Mira,  he  divided  his  time  for  the  next  two  years. 
During  the  earlier  part  of  his  Venetian  career  he  had  con- 
tinued to  frequent  the  salon  of  the  Countess  Albrizzi, 
■where  he  met  with  people  of  both  sexes  of  some  rank  and 
standing  who  appreciated  his  genius,  though  some  among 
them  fell  into  absurd  mistakes.  A  gentleman  of  the  com- 
pany informing  the  hostess,  in  answer  to  some  inquiry 
regarding  Can  ova's  busts,  that  Washington,  the  American 
President,  was  shot  in  a  duel  by  Burke,  "What  in  the 
name  of  folly  are  you  thinking  of  ?"  said  Byron,  perceiv- 
ing that  the  speaker  was  confounding  Washington  with 


1-J(»  BYRON.  [chap. 

Hamilton,  and  T>urke  with  Burr.  ITc  afterwards  transfer- 
rcil  himself  to  the  rival  coterie  of  the  Countess  Benzoiii, 
and  {yave  himself  np  with  little  reserve  to  the  intrif^ues 
which  cast  discredit  on  this  portion  of  his  life.  Nothinj^ 
is  so  conducive  to  dissipation  as  despair,  and  Byron  had 
begun  to  reo-ard  the  Sea-Cybele  as  a  Sea-Sodom — when  lie 
wrote,  "To  watch  a  city  die  daily,  as  she  docs,  is  a  sad  con- 
templation. I  sought  to  distract  my  mind  from  a  sense  of 
lier  desolation  and  my  own  solitude,  by  plunging  into  a 
vortex  that  was  anything  but  pleasure."  In  any  case,  he 
forsook  the  "Dame,"  and  by  what  his  biographer  calls  a 
"descent  in  the  scale  of  refinement  for  which  nothing  but 
the  wayward  state  of  his  mind  can  account,"  souglit  the 
companions  of  his  leisure  hours  among  the  wearers  of  the 
"fazzioli."  The  carnivals  of  the  years  1818,  1819,  mark 
the  height  of  his  excesses.  Early  in  the  former,  Mariana 
Segati  fell  out  of  favour,  owing  to  Byron's  having  detect- 
ed her  in  selling  the  jewels  he  had  given  as  presents,  and 
so  being  led  to  suspect  a  large  mercenary  element  in  her 
devotion.  To  her  succeeded  Margarita  Cogni,  the  wife  of 
a  baker,  who  proved  as  accommodating  as  his  predecessor, 
the  linen-draper.  This  woman  was  decidedly  a  character, 
and  Senor  Castelar  has  almost  elevated  her  into  a  heroine. 
A  handsome  virago,  with  brown  shoulders  and  black  hair, 
endowed  with  the  strength  of  an  Amazon,  "a  face  like 
Fanstma's,  and  the  figure  of  a  Juno — tall  and  energetic  as 
a  pythoness,"  she  quartered  herself  for  twelve  months  in 
the  palace  as  "Donna  di  govcrno,"  and  drove  the  servants 
about  without  let  or  hindrance.  Unable  to  read  or  write, 
she  intercepted  his  lordship's  letters  to  little  purpose ;  but 
she  had  great  natural  business  talents,  reduced  by  one  half 
the  expenses  of  his  household,  kept  everything  in  good 
order,  and,  when  her  violences  roused  his  wrath,  turned  it 


VII. J  LIFE  AT  VENICE.  121 

o2  with  some  ready  retort  or  witticism.  She  was  very 
devout,  and  would  cross  herself  three  times  at  the  Ange- 
las. One  instance,  of  a  different  kind  of  devotion,  from 
Byron's  own  account,  is  sufficiently  graphic :  "  In  the 
autumn  one  day,  going  to  the  Lido  with  my  gondoliers, 
we  were  overtaken  by  a  heavy  squall,  and  the  gondola  put 
in  peril,  hats  blown  away,  boat  filling,  oar  lost,  tumbling 
sea,  thunder,  rain  in  torrents,  and  wind  unceasing.  On 
our  return,  after  a  tight  struggle,  I  found  her  on  the  open 
steps  of  the  Mocenigo  Palace  on  the  Grand  Canal,  with  her 
great  black  eyes  flashing  through  her  tears,  and  the  long 
dark  hair  which  was  streaming,  drenched  with  rain,  over 
her  brows.  She  was  perfectly  exposed  to  the  storm  ;  and 
the  wind  blowing  her  dress  about  her  thin  figure,  and  the 
lightning  flashing  round  her,  made  her  look  like  Medea 
alighted  from  her  chariot,  or  the  Sibyl  of  the  tempest  that 
was  rolling  around  her,  the  only  living  thing  within  hail 
at  that  moment  except  ourselves.  On  seeing  me  safe,  she 
did  not  wait  to  greet  me,  as  might  have  been  expected ; 
but,  calling  out  to  me,  '  Ah  !  can'  della  Madonna,  xe  esto 
il  tempo  per  andar'  al'  Lido,'  ran  into  the  house,  and  sol- 
aced herself  with  scolding  the  boatmen  for  not  foreseeing 
the  'temporale.'  Her  joy  at  seeing  me  again  was  moder- 
ately mixed  with  ferocity,  and  gave  me  the  idea  of  a  tigress 
over  her  recovered  cubs." 

Some  months  after,  she  became  ungovernable — threw 
plates  about,  and  snatched  caps  from  the  heads  of  other 
women  who  looked  at  her  lord  in  public  places.  Byron 
told  her  she  must  go  home ;  whereupon  she  proceeded  to 
break  glass,  and  threaten  "  knives,  poison,  fire ;"  and  on 
his  calling  his  boatmen  to  get  ready  the  gondola,  threw 
herself  in  the  dark  night  into  the  canal.  She  was  rescued, 
and  in  a  few  days  finally  dismissed  ;  after  which  he  saw 
6* 


122  LiVUnX.  [ciii.p. 

her  only  twico,  at  the  tlieatre.  Ifer  whole  picture  is  more 
like  that  of  Theroij^iie  de  Merieoiirt  than  tliat  of  Raphael's 
Fornariiia,  whose  name  she  received. 

Other  stories,  of  course,  gathered  round  this  stranjjie  life 
— personal  encounters,  aquatic  feats,  and  all  manner  of  ro- 
mantic and  impossible  episodes;  their  basis  beinj;  that 
Byron  on  one  occasion  thrashed,  on  another  challen[i;ed,  a 
man  who  tried  to  cheat  him,  was  a  frequent  rider,  and  a 
constant  swimmer,  so  that  he  came  to  be  called  "  the  I^ng- 
lish  tish,"  "water-spaniel,"  "sea-devil,"  «tc.  One  of  the 
boatmen  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  lie  is  a  good  gondo- 
lier, spoilt  by  being  a  poet  and  a  lord;"  and  in  answer  to 
a  traveller's  inquiry,  "  Where  does  lie  get  his  poetry  ?" 
"  He  dives  for  it."  Ilis  habits,  as  regards  eating,  seem  to 
have  been  generally  abstemious ;  but  he  drank  a  pint  of 
gin  and  water  over  his  verses  at  night,  and  then  took  claret 
and  soda  in  the  morning. 

Riotous  living  may  have  helped  to  curtail  Byron's  life, 
but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  seriously  impaired  his  powers. 
Among  these  adverse  surroundings  of  the  "court  of  Circe," 
he  threw  off  Beppo,  Mazeppa,  and  the  early  books  of  Don 
Juan.  The  first  canto  of  the  last  was  written  in  November, 
1818;  the  second  in  January,  1819;  the  third  and  fourth 
towards  the  close  of  the  same  year.  Bepj)o,  its  brilliant 
prelude,  sparkles  like  a  draught  of  champagne.  This 
"Venetian  story,'' or  sketch,  in  which  the  author  broke 
ground  on  his  true  satiric  field — the  satire  of  social  life — 
and  first  adopted  the  measure  avowedly  suggested  by 
Frere's  Whisllccriift,  was  drafted  in  October,  1817,  and 
appeared  in  May,  1818.  It  aims  at  comparatively  little, 
but  is  perfectly  successful  in  its  aim,  and  unsurpassed  for 
the  incisiveness  of  its  side  strokes,  and  the  courtly  ease  of 
a  manner  that  never  degenerates  into  mannerism.     In  Ma- 


VII.]  LIFE  AT  VENICE.  12a 

zeppa  tlie  poet  reverts  to  his  earlier  style,  and  that  of  Scott ; 
the  description  of  the  headlong  ride  hurries  us  along  with 
a  breathless  expectancy  that  gives  it  a  conspicuous  place 
among  his  minor  efforts.  The  passage  about  the  howl- 
ing of  the  wolves,  and  the  fever  faint  of  the  victim,  is  as 
graphic  as  anything  in  Burns — 

"  The  skies  spun  like  a  mighty  wheel, 
I  saw  the  trees  like  drunkards  reel." 

In  the  May  or  June  of  1818  Byron's  little  daughter,  Al- 
legra,  had  been  sent  from  England,  under  the  care  of  a  Swiss 
nurse  too  young  to  undertake  her  management  in  such 
trying  circumstances,  and  after  four  months  of  anxiety  he 
placed  her  in  charge  of  Mrs.  Hoppner.  In  the  course  of 
this  and  the  next  year  there  are  frequent  allusions  to  the 
child,  all,  save  one  which  records  a  mere  affectation  of  in- 
difference, full  of  affectionate  solicitude.  In  June,  1819, 
he  writes,  "  Her  temper  and  her  ways,  Mr.  Hoppner  says, 
are  like  mine,  as  well  as  her  features ;  she  will  make,  in 
that  case,  a  manageable  young  lady."  Later  he  talks  of 
her  as  "  flourishing  like  a  pomegranate  blossom."  In 
March,  1820,  we  have  another  reference.  "Allegra  is 
prettier,  I  think,  but  as  obstinate  as  a  mule,  and  as  raven- 
ous as  a  vulture ;  health  good  to  judge  by  the  complex- 
ion, temper  tolerable  but  for  vanity  and  pertinacity.  She 
thinks  herself  handsome,  and  will  do  as  she  pleases."  In 
May  he  refers  to  having  received  a  letter  from  her  mother, 
but  gives  no  details.  In  the  following  year,  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  Shelleys,  then  at  Pisa,  he  placed  her  for  ed- 
ucation in  the  convent  of  Cavalli  Bagni  in  the  Romagna. 
"  I  have,"  he  writes  to  Hoppner,  who  had  thought  of  hav- 
ing her  boarded  in  Switzerland,  "  neither  spared  care,  kind- 
ness, nor  expense,  since  the  child  was  sent  to  me.     The 


124  BYRON.  [cuAP. 

people  may  say  what  tliey  please.  I  must  content  my- 
self with  not  deserving,  in  this  instance,  that  they  should 
speak  ill.  The  place  is  a  country  town,  in  a  good  air,  and 
less  liable  to  objections  of  every  kind.  It  has  always  ap- 
peared to  me  that  the  moral  defect  in  Italy  does  not  pro- 
ceed from  a  conrcittiial  education  :  because,  to  niy  certain 
knowledge,  they  come  out  of  their  convents  innocent,  even 
to  ignorance  of  moral  evil  ;  but  to  the  state  of  society 
into  which  they  are  directly  plunged  on  coming  out  of  it. 
It  is  like  educating  an  infant  on  a  mountain  top,  and  then 
taking  him  to  the  sea  and  throwing  him  into  it,  and  de- 
siring him  to  swim."  Elsewhere  he  says,  "  I  by  no  means 
intend  to  give  a  natural  child  an  English  education,  be- 
cause, with  the  disadvantages  of  her  birth,  her  after  settle- 
ment would  be  doubly  difficult.  Abroad,  with  a  fair  for- 
eign education,  and  a  portion  of  5000/.  or  GOOO/.  (his  will 
leaving  her  5000/.,  on  condition  that  she  should  not  marry 
an  Englishman,  is  here  explained  and  justified),  she  might, 
and  may,  marry  very  respectably.  In  England  such  a 
dowry  would  be  a  pittance,  while  elsewhere  it  is  a  fortune. 
It  is,  besides,  ray  wish  that  she  should  be  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic, which  I  look  upon  as  the  best  religion,  as  it  is  assured- 
ly the  oldest  of  the  various  branches  of  Christianity."  It 
only  remains  to  add  that,  when  he  heard  that  the  child 
had  fallen  ill  of  fever  in  1822,  Byron  was  almost  speech- 
less with  agitation,  and,  on  the  news  of  her  death,  which 
took  place  April  22nd,  he  seemed  at  first  utterly  pros- 
trated. Next  day  he  said,  " Allegra  is  dead;  she  is  more 
fortunate  than  we.  It  is  God's  will ;  let  us  mention  it  no 
more."  Her  remains  rest  beneath  the  elm-tree  at  Harrow 
which  her  father  used  to  haunt  in  boyhood,  with  the  date 
of  birth  and  death,  and  the  verse — 

"  I  sliall  go  to  her,  hut  she  shall  not  return  to  me." 


VII.]  SHELLEY.  125 

The  most  interesting  of  the  visits  paid  to  Byron  during 
the  period  of  his  life  at  Venice  was  that  of  Shelley,  who, 
leaving  his  wife  and  children  at  Bagni  di  Lucca,  came  to 
see  him  in  August,  1818.  He  arrived  late,  in  the  midst 
of  a  thunder-storm  ;  and  next  day  they  sailed  to  the  Lido, 
and  rode  together  along  the  sands.  The  attitude  of  the 
two  poets  towards  each  other  is  curious;  the  comparative- 
ly shrewd  man  of  the  world  often  relied  on  the  idealist 
for  guidance  and  help  in  practical  matters,  admired  his 
courage  and  independence,  spoke  of  him  invariably  as  the 
best  of  men,  but  never  paid  a  sufficiently  warm  tribute  in 
public  to  his  work.  Shelley,  on  the  other  hand,  certainly 
the  most  modest  of  great  poets,  contemplates  Byron  in 
the  fixed  attitude  of  a  literary  worshipper. 

The  introduction  to  Julian  and  Maddalo^  directly  sug- 
gested by  this  visit,  under  the  slight  veil  of  a  change  in 
the  name,  gives  a  summary  of  the  view  of  his  friend's 
character  which  he  continued  to  entertain.  "  He  is  a  per- 
son of  the  most  comsummate  genius,  and  capable,  if  he 
would  direct  his  energies  to  such  an  end,  of  becoming  the 
redeemer  of  his  degraded  country.  But  it  is  his  weak- 
ness to  be  proud  ;  he  derives,  from  a  comparison  of  his 
own  extraordinary  mind  with  the  dwarfish  intellects  that 
surround  him,  an  intense  apprehension  of  the  nothingness 
of  human  life.  His  passions  and  his  powers  are  incom- 
parably greater  than  those  of  other  men ;  and  instead  of 
the  latter  having  been  employed  in  curbing  the  former, 
they  have  mutually  lent  each  other  strength ;"  but  "  in 
social  life  no  human  being  can  be  more  gentle,  patient, 
and  unassuming.  He  is  cheerful,  frank,  and  witty.  His 
more  serious  conversation  is  a  sort  of  intoxication ;  men 
are  held  by  it  as  by  a  spell." 

Subsequently  to  this  visit  Byron  lent  the  villa  at  Este 


IJO  BYKUN.  [cHii-. 

to  his  fiicnil,  and  during  tlie  autumn  weeks  of  their  resi- 
•  K-noe  there  were  written  the  lines  among  the  Euganean 
hills,  where,  in  the  same  strain  of  reverence,  Shelley  refers 
to  tlie  "  tempest-cleaving  swan  of  Albion,"  to  the  "  music 
thing  o'er  a  mighty  thunder-fit,"  and  to  the  sun-like  soul 
destined  to  immortalize  his  ocean  refuge — 

"As  the  <;host  of  Homer  clings 
Round  Sciiiniiuder's  wasting  springs, 
As  (livini'st  Sliaivspeare's  might 
J'ilis  Avon  and  the  world  witli  light." 

"  The  sun,"  he  says,  at  a  later  date,  "  has  extinguished 
the  glowworm;"  and  again,  "  I  despair  of  rivalling  Lord 
Byron,  as  well  I  may ;  and  there  is  no  other  with  whom 
it  is  worth  contending." 

Shelley  was,  in  the  main,  not  only  an  exquisite  but  a 
trustworthy  critic ;  and  no  man  was  more  absolutely 
above  being  influenced  by  the  fanfaronade  of  rank  or  the 
din  of  popularity.  These  criticisms  are  therefore  not  to 
be  lightly  set  aside,  nor  are  they  unintelligible.  Perhaps 
those  admirers  of  the  clearer  and  more  consistent  nature, 
who  exalt  liim  to  the  rank  of  a  greater  poet,  arc  misled  by 
the  amiable  love  of  one  of  the  purest  characters  in  the 
history  of  our  literature.  There  is  at  least  no  difficulty 
in  understanding  why  he  should  have  been,  as  it  were, 
concussed  by  Byron's  greater  massiveness  and  energy  into 
a  sense — easy  to  a  man  half  bard,  half  saint — of  inferiori- 
ty. Similarly,  most  of  the  estimates — many  already  re- 
versed, others  reversible — by  the  men  of  that  age,  of  each 
other,  can  be  explained.  We  can  sec  how  it  was  that 
Shelley  overestimated  both  the  character  and  the  powers 
of  Hunt;  and  Byron  depreciated  Keats,  and  was  ultimate- 
ly repelled  by  Wordsworth,  and  held  out  his  band  to  meet 


Yii.]  MOORE.  127 

the  manly  grasp  of  Scott.  The  one  enigraa  of  their  criti- 
cism is  the  respect  that  they  joined  in  paying  to  the  witty, 
genial,  shallow,  worldly,  musical  Tom  Moore. 

This  favom-ite  of  fortune  and  the  minor  muses,  in  the 
course  of  a  short  tour  through  the  north  of  Italy  in  the 
autumn  of  1819,  found  his  noble  friend  on  the  8th  of 
October  at  La  Mira,  went  with  him  on  a  sight-seeing  ex- 
pedition to  Venice,  and  passed  five  or  six  days  in  his 
company.  Of  this  visit  he  has  recorded  his  impressions, 
some  of  which  relate  to  his  host's  personal  appearance, 
others  to  his  habits  and  leading  incidents  of  his  life. 
Byron  "  had  grown  fatter,  both  in  person  and  face,  and 
the  latter  had  suffered  most  by  the  change,  having  lost  by 
the  enlargement  of  the  features  some  of  that  refined  and 
spiritualized  look  that  had  in  other  times  distinguished  it ; 
but  although  less  romantic,  he  appeared  more  humorous." 
They  renewed  their  recollections  of  the  old  days  and 
nights  in  London,  and  compared  them  with  later  experi- 
ences of  Bores  and  Blues,  in  a  manner  which  threatened 
to  put  to  flight  the  historical  and  poetical  associations 
naturally  awakened  by  the  City  of  the  Sea.  Byron  had  a 
rooted  dislike  to  any  approach  to  fine  talk  in  the  ordinary 
intercourse  of  life;  and  when  his  coihpanion  began  to 
rhapsodize  on  the  rosy  hue  of  the  Italian  sunsets,  he  in- 
terrupted him  with,  ''  Come,  d — n  it,  Tom,  donH  be  po- 
etical." He  insisted  on  Moore,  who  sighed  after  what  he 
imagined  would  be  the  greater  comforts  of  an  hotel,  tak- 
ing up  his  quarters  in  his  palace ;  and  as  they  were  grop- 
ing their  way  through  the  somewhat  dingy  entrance,  cried 
out,  "  Keep  clear  of  the  dog !"  and  a  few  paces  farther, 
"  Take  care,  or  the  monkey  will  fly  at  you !"  an  incident 
recalling  the  old  vagaries  of  the  menagerie  at  Newstead. 
The  biographer's  reminiscences  mainly  dwell  on  his  lord- 


128  BYRON.  [chap. 

ship's  cliaiigiDg  moods  and  tempers  and  gymnastic  exer- 
cises, liis  terror  of  interviewiiii^  strani^a-rs,  his  imperfect 
appreciation  of  art,  liis  preference  of  lish  to  tlesh,  his  al- 
most parsimonious  economy  in  small  matters,  mingled 
with  allusions  to  his  domestic  calamities,  and  frequent  ex- 
pressions of  a  growing  distaste  to  Venetian  society.  On 
leaving  the  city,  Moore  passed  a  second  afternoon  at  La 
Mira,  had  a  glimpse  of  Allegra,  and  the  first  intimation  of 
the  existence  of  the  notorious  Memoirs.  "A  short  tin)e 
after  dinner  Byron  left  the  room,  and  returned  carrying 
in  his  hand  a  white  leather  bag.  '  Look  here,'  he  said, 
holding  it  up;  'this  would  be  worth  something  to  Mur- 
ray, though  you,  I  dare  say,  would  not  give  sixpence  for 
it.'  '  What  is  it  ?'  I  asked.  '  My  life  and  adventm-cs,'  he 
answered.  '  It  is  not  a  thing,'  he  answered,  '  that  can  be 
published  during  my  lifetime,  but  you  may  have  it  if  you 
like.  There,  do  whatever  you  please  with  it.'  In  taking 
the  bag,  and  thanking  him  most  warmly,  I  added, 'This 
will  make  a  nice  legacy  for  my  little  Tom,  who  shall  as- 
tonish the  latter  days  of  the  nineteenth  century  with  it.' '" 
Shortly  after,  Moore  for  the  last  time  bade  his  friend  fare- 
well, taking  with  him  from  Madame  Guiccioli,  who  did 
the  honours  of  the  house,  an  introduction  to  her  brother, 
Count  Gamba,  at  Rome.     "Theresa  Guiccioli,"  says  Cas- 

'  III  December,  1820,  Byron  sent  several  more  sheets  of  memo- 
randa from  Ravenna;  am]  in  the  following  year  suggested  an  ar- 
rangement by  wiiich  Murray  paid  over  to  Moore,  who  was  then  in 
dimfuUies,  2000/.  for  the  right  of  puljlishing  the  whole,  under  the 
loiidition,  among  others,  that  Lady  Byron  should  see  them,  and  have 
the  right  of  reply  to  anything  that  miglit  socm  to  her  objectionable. 
She  on  her  part  declined  to  have  anything  to  do  with  them.  When 
the  Memoirs  were  destroyed,  Moore  paid  baik  the  2()0o/.,  but  ob- 
tained four  thousand  guineas  for  editing  the  Life  and  Correspond- 


ence. 


vn.]  THE  COUNTESS  GUICCIOLI.  129 

telar,  "  appears  like  a  star  on  tlie  stormy  horizon  of  the 
poet's  life,"  A  young  Romagnese,  the  daughter  of  a  no- 
bleman of  Ravenna,  of  good  descent  but  limited  means, 
she  had  been  educated  in  a  convent,  and  married  in  her 
nineteenth  year  to  a  rich  widower  of  sixty,  in  early  life  a 
friend  of  Alfieri,  and  noted  as  the  patron  of  the  National 
Theatre.  This  beautiful  blonde,  of  pleasing  manners, 
graceful  presence,  and  a  strong  vein  of  sentiment,  fostered 
by  the  reading  of  Cliateaubriand,  met  Byron  for  the  first 
time  casually  when  she  came  in  her  bridal  dress  to  one 
of  the  Albrizzi  reunions;  but  she  was  only  introduced  to 
him  early  in  the  April  of  the  following  year,  at  the  house  p 
of  the  Countess  Benzoni.  "Suddenly  the  young  Italian 
found  herself  inspired  with  a  passion  of  which  till  that 
moment  her  mind  could  not  have  formed  the  least  idea ; 
she  had  thought  of  love  but  as  an  amusement,  and  now 
became  its  slave."  Byron,  on  the  other  hand,  gave  what 
remained  of  a  heart  never  alienated  from  her  by  any  oth- 
er mistress.  Till  the  middle  of  the  month  they  met  ev- 
ery day ;  and  when  the  husband  took  her  back  to  Raven- 
na she  despatched  to  her  idol  a  series  of  impassioned  let- 
ters, declaring  her  resolution  to  mould  her  life  in  accord- 
ance with  his  wishes.  Towards  the  end  of  May  she  had 
prepared  her  relatives  to  receive  Byron  as  a  visitor.  He 
started  in  answer  to  the  summons,  writing  on  his  way  the 
beautiful  stanzas  to  the  Po,  beginning — 

"  River  that  rollest  by  the  ancient  walls 
Where  dwells  the  lady  of  my  love." 

Again  passing  through  Ferrara,  and  visiting  Bologna,  he 
left  the  latter  on  the  8th,  and  on  his  arrival  at  his  destina- 
tion found  the  Countess  dangerously  ill ;  but  his  presence, 
and  the  attentions  of  the  famous  Venetian  doctor  Aglietti, 


ISO  BYRON.  [cuAP. 

who  was  sent  for  by  his  advice,  restored  her.  TIio  Count 
seems  to  have  been  proud  of  his  guest.  "  I  can't  make 
liim  out  at  all,"  Byron  writes;  "he  visits  me  frequently, 
and  takes  me  out  (like  WhittiuLTton  the  Lord  Maynr)  in  a 
(i.ach  and  six  horses.  The  fact  appears  to  be,  that  he  is 
completely  governed  by  her — and,  for  thai  matter,  so  am 
1."  Later  ho  speaks  of  having  got  his  horses  from  Ven- 
ii-e,  and  riding  or  driving  daily  in  the  scenery  reproduced 
in  the  third  canto  of  Do)i,  Juan  : — 

"Sweet  hour  of  twilight !  in  the  solitude 
Of  the  pine  forest,  and  the  silent  shore 
Which  bounds  Ravenna's  imiuemorial  wood." 

On  Theresa's  recovery,  in  dread  of  a  possible  separation, 
he  proposed  to  fiy  with  her  to  America,  to  the  Alps,  to 
"  some  unsuspected  isle  in  the  far  seas ;"  and  she  suggest- 
ed the  idea  of  feigning  death,  like  Juliet,  and  rising  from 
the  tomb.  Neither  expedient  was  called  for.  When  the 
Count  went  to  Bologna,  in  August,  with  his  wife.  Lord 
Byron  was  allowed  to  follow ;  and  after  consoling  himself 
during  an  excursion  which  the  married  pair  made  to  their 
estate,  by  hovering  about  her  empty  rooms  and  writing 
in  her  books,  he  established  himself,  on  the  Count's  re- 
turn to  his  headquarters,  with  her  and  Allegra  at  Bologna. 
Meanwhile,  Byron  had  written  The  Propheci/  of  Dante,  and 
in  August  the  prose  letter,  To  the  Editor  of  the  British 
Hei'iew,  on  the  charge  of  bribery  in  Don  Juan.  Than 
this  inimitable  epistle  no  more  laughter-compelling  com- 
position exists.  About  the  same  time,  we  hear  of  his  leav- 
ing the  theatre  in  a  convulsion  of  tears,  occasioned  by  the 
representation  of  Allieri's  Mirra. 

He  left  Bologna  with  the  Countess  on  the  15th  of  Sep- 
tember, when  tlioy  visited  the  Euganean  hills  and  Arqua, 


Til.]  DEPARTURE  FROM  VENICE.  131 

and  wrote  tlieir  naines  together  in  the  Pilgrim's  Book. 
On  arriving  at  Venice,  the  physicians  recommending  Ma- 
dame Guiccioli  to  country  air,  they  settled,  still  by  her 
husband's  consent,  for  the  autumn  at^La  Mira,  where 
Moore  and  others  found  them  domesticated.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  November  the  poet  was  prostrated  by  an  at- 
tack of  tertian  fever.  In  some  of  his  hours  of  delirium 
lie  dictated  to  his  careful  nurses,  Fletcher  and  the  Count- 
ess, a  number  of  verses,  which  she  assures  us  were  correct 
and  sensible.  lie  attributes  his  restoration  to  cold  water 
and  the  absence  of  doctors-,  but,  ere  his  complete  recov- 
ery, Count  Guiccioli  had  suddenly  appeared  on  the  scene, 
and  run  away  with  his  own  wife.  The  lovers  had  for  a 
time  not  only  to  acquiesce  in  the  separation,  but  to  agree 
to  cease  their  correspondence.  In  December  Byron,  in  a 
fit  of  spleen,  had  packed  up  his  belongings,  with  a  view  to 
return  to  England.  "  He  was,"  we  are  told,  "  ready  dress- 
ed for  the  journey,  his  boxes  on  board  the  gondola,  his 
gloves  and  cap  on,  and  even  his  little  cane  in  his  hand, 
when  my  lord  declares  that  if  it  should  strike  one — which 
it  did — before  everything  was  in  order,  he  would  not  go 
that  day.  It  is  evident  he  had  not  the  heart  to  go." 
Next  day  he  heard  that  Madame  Guiccioli  was  again  se- 
riously ill,  received  and  accepted  the  renewed  invitation 
which  bound  him  to  her  and  to  the  south.  He  left  Ven- 
ice for  the  last  time  almost  by  stealth,  rushed  along  the 
familiar  roads,  and  was  welcomed  at  Ravenna. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

[1820-1821.] 
RAVENNA. DRAMAS.— CAIN. VISION    OF    JUDGMENT. 

Byron's  life  at  Kavcniia  was  duriii^j  tlic  first  niontlis 
comparatively  calm  ;  novertlicicss,  he  mintrlcd  in  society, 
took  part  in  the  Carnival,  and  was  received  at  the  parties 
of  the  Legate.  "  I  may  stay,"  ho  writes  in  January,  1820, 
"a  day — a  week — a  year — all  my  life."  Moanwhik,  he 
imported  his  movables  from  Venice,  hired  a  suite  of  rooms 
in  the  Guiccioli  palace,  executed  his  marvellously  close 
translation  of  Pulci's  Mon/anle  Ma(/f/iore,  wrote  his  ver- 
sion of  the  story  of  Francesca  of  Rimini,  and  received  visits 
from  Ills  old  friend  Bankes  and  from  Sir  lliiiii[)liry  Davy. 
At  this  time  he  was  accustomed  to  ride  about  armed  to 
the  teeth,  apprehending  a  possible  attack  from  assassins 
on  the  part  of  Count  Guiccioli.  In  April  his  klters  refer 
to  the  insurrectionary  movements  then  beginning  against 
the  Holy  Alliance.  "  Wo  are  on  the  verge  of  a  row  here. 
Last  night  they  have  over-written  all  the  city  walls  with 
'Up  with  the  iiei)iiblic!'  and  'Death  to  the  Pope!'  The 
police  have  been  searching  for  the  subscribers,  but  have 
caught  none  as  yet.  The  other  day  they  confiscated  the 
whole  translation  of  the  fourth  canto  of  Childe  Harold, 
and  have  prosecuted  the  translator."  In  July  a  Papal 
decree  of  separation  between  the  Countess  and  her  hus- 
band was  obtained,  on  condition  of  the  latter  paying  from 


CHAP.  Tin.]  RAVENNA.  133 

his  large  income  a  pittance  to  the  lady  of  200?.  a  year,  and 
her  undertaking  to  live  in  her  father's  house — an  engage- 
ment which  was,  first  in  the  spirit,  and  subsequently  in  the 
letter,  violated.  For  a  time,  however,  she  retired  to  a  villa 
about  fifteen  miles  from  Ravenna,  where  she  was  visited 
by  Byron  at  comparatively  rare  intervals.  By  the  end  of 
July  he  had  finished  Marino  Faliero,  and  ere  the  close  of 
the  year  the  fifth  canto  of  Don  Juan.  In  September  he 
says  to  Murray,  "  I  am  in  a  fierce  humour  at  not  having 
Scott's  Monastery.  No  more  Keats,'  I  entreat.  There  is 
no  bearing  the  drivelling  idiotism  of  the  manikin.  I  don't 
feel  inclined  to  care  further  about  Don  Juan,  What  do 
you  think  a  very  pretty  Italian  lady  said  to  me  the  other 
day,  when  I  remarked  that  'it  would  live  longer  than 
Childe  Harold  r  *Ah!  but  I  would  rather  have  the 
fame  of  Childe  Harold  for  three  years  than  an  immortal- 
ity of  D. «/.'  "  This  is  to-day  the  common  female  judg- 
ment ;  it  is  known  to  have  been  La  Guiccioli's,  as  well 
as  Mrs.  Leigh's,  and  by  their  joint  persuasion  Byron  was 
for  a  season  induced  to  lay  aside  "  that  horrid,  wearisome 
Don."  About  this  time  he  wrote  the  memorable  reply  to 
the  remarks  on  that  poem  in  Blackwood'' s  Magazine,  where 
he  enters  on  a  defence  of  his  life,  attacks  the  Lakers,  and 
champions  Pope  against  the  new  school  of  poetry,  lament- 
ing that  his  own  practice  did  not  square  with  his  precept; 
and  adding,  "  We  are  all  wrong,  except  Rogers,  Crabbe, 
and  Campbell." 

1  In  a  note  on  a  similar  passage,  bearing  the  date  November  12, 
1821,  he,  however,  confesses :  "  Mj  indignation  at  Mr.  Keats'  de- 
preciation of  Pope  has  hardly  permitted  me  to  do  justice  to  his  own 
genius,  which  malgre  all  the  fantastic  fopperies  of  his  style  was  un- 
doubtedly of  great  promise.  His  fragment  of  Hyperion  seems  actual- 
ly inspired  by  the  Titans,  and  is  as  subUme  as  JEschylus.  He  is  a 
loss  to  our  literature." 


134  BYKUX.  [chap. 

Id  Xovcmbor  he  refers  to  ri'ports  of  his  letters  being 
opened  by  the  Austrian  oflicials,  and  the  unpleasant  things 
the  Huns,  as  he  calls  them,  are  likely  to  find  therein. 
Early  in  the  next  month  be  tells  Moore  that  the  com- 
mandant of  their  tr()oi)s,  a  brave  officer,  but  obnoxious  to 
the  people,  had  been  found  lying  at  his  door,  with  five 
slugs  in  him,  and,  bleeding  inwardly,  had  died  in  the  pal- 
ace, where  he  had  been  brought  to  be  nursed. 

This  incident  is  versified  in  Don  Juan,  v.  33-39,  with 
anatomical  minuteness  of  detail.  After  trying  in  vain  to 
wrench  an  answer  out  of  death,  the  poet  ends  in  his  ac- 
customed strain — 

"  But  it  was  all  a  mystery.     Ilcro  we  arc. 
And  tliere  we  go: — but  where?     Five  bits  of  lead — 
Or  three,  or  two,  or  one — send  very  far  !" 

Assassination  has  sometimes  been  the  prelude  to  revolu- 
tion, but  it  may  be  questioned  if  it  has  ever  promoted  the 
cause  of  liberty.  Most  frequently  it  has  served  as  a  pre- 
text for  reaction,  or  a  red  signal.  In  this  instance — as 
afterwards  in  1848  —  overt  acts  of  violence  made  the 
powers  of  despotism  more  alert,  and  conduced,  with  the 
half-hearted  action  of  their  adversaries,  to  the  supjjression 
of  the  rising  of  1820-21.  Byron's  sympatliy  with  the 
movement  seems  to  liavc  been  stimulated  by  his  new  as- 
sociations. Theresa's  brother.  Count  Pietro,  an  enthu- 
siastic young  soldier,  having  returned  from  Rome  and 
Naples,  surmounting  a  prejudice  not  wholly  unnatural, 
became  attached  to  him,  and  they  entered  into  a  partner- 
ship in  briialf  of  wliat — ado])ting  a  phrase  often  Haunted 
in  opposite  camps — they  called  constitutional  principles. 
Finally,  the  poet  so  committed  himself  to  the  party  of 
insurrection  that,  though  his  nationalltv  srcured  hiui  from 


viii.]  RAVENNA.  135 

direct  attack,  his  movements  were  necessarily  affected  by 
the  fiasco.  In  July  the  Gambas  were  banished  from  the 
Eomagna,  Pietro  being  actually  carried  by  force  over  the 
frontier;  and,  according  to  the  articles  of  her  separation, 
the  Countess  had  to  follow  them  to  Florence.  Byron  lin- 
gered for  some  months,  partly  from  a  spirit  of  defiance, 
and  partly  from  his  affection  towards  a  place  where  he 
had  enlisted  the  regards  of  numerous  beneficiaries.  The 
Gambas  were  for  some  time  bent  on  migrating  to  Switzer- 
land; but  the  poet,  after  first  acquiescing,  subsequently 
conceived  a  violent  repugnance  to  the  idea,  and  eai-ly  in 
August  wrote  to  Shelley,  earnestly  requesting  his  presence, 
aid,  and  counsel.  Shelley  at  once  complied,  and,  entering 
into  a  correspondence  with  Madame  Guiccioli,  succeeded 
in  inducing  her  relatives  to  abandon  their  transmontane 
plans,  and  agree  to  take  up  their  headquarters  at  Pisa. 
This  incident  gave  rise  to  a  series  of  interesting  letters,  in 
which  the  younger  poet  gives  a  vivid  and  generous  account 
of  the  surroundings  and  condition  of  his  friend.  On  the 
2nd  of  iVugust  he  writes  from  Ravenna :  "  I  arrived  last 
night  at  ten  o'clock,  and  sat  up  talking  with  Lord  B.  till 
five  this  morning.  He  was  delighted  to  see  me.  He  has, 
in  fact,  completely  recovered  his  health,  and  lives  a  life 
totally  the  reverse  of  that  which  he  led  at  Venice.  .  .  . 
Poor  fellow !  he  is  now  quite  well,  and  immersed  in  pol- 
itics and  literature.  We  talked  a  great  deal  of  poetry  and 
such  matters  last  night,  and,  as  usual,  differed,  I  think, 
more  than  ever.  He  affects  to  patronize  a  system  of  crit- 
icism fit  only  for  the  production  of  mediocrity;  and,  al- 
though all  his  finer  poems  and  passages  have  been  pro- 
duced in  defiance  of  this  system,  yet  I  recognize  the  per- 
nicious effects  of  it  in  the  Boge  of  Venice.'^  Again,  on  the 
15th:  "Lord  B.  is  greatly  improved  in  every  respect — in 


nfi  BYRON.  [diAP. 

pcnius,  in  temper,  in  moral  views,  in  health  and  happiness. 
Ilia  connexion  witli  La  Guiccioli  has  been  an  inestimable 
benefit  to  him.  lie  lives  in  considerable  splendour,  but 
\vitliiu  his  income,  which  is  now  about  4000/.  a  year, 
lUOO/.  of  which  he  devotes  to  purposes  of  charity.  Switz- 
erland is  little  fitted  for  him  ;  the  gossip  and  the  cabals 
of  those  Anglicised  coteries  would  torment  him  as  they 
did  before.  Ravenna  is  a  miserable  place.  lie  would  in 
every  respect  be  better  among  the  Tuscans.  He  has  read 
to  me  one  of  the  unpublished  cantos  of  Don  Juan.  It 
sets  him  not  only  above,  but  far  above,  all  the  poets  of  the 
day.  Every  word  has  the  stamp  of  immortality.  ...  I 
have  spoken  to  him  of  Hunt,  but  not  with  a  direct  view  of 
demanding  a  contribution.  I  am  sure,  if  I  asked,  it  would 
not  be  refused ;  yet  there  is  something  in  me  that  makes 
it  impossible.  Lord  B.  and  I  are  excellent  friends;  and 
were  I  reduced  to  poverty,  or  were  I  a  writer  who  had  no 
claim  to  a  higher  position  than  I  possess,  I  would  freely 
ask  him  any  favour.  Such  is  not  now  the  case."  Later, 
after  stating  that  Byron  had  decided  upon  Tuscany,  he 
says,  in  reference  to  La  Guiccioli :  "  At  the  conclusion  of 
a  letter,  full  of  all  the  fine  things  she  says  she  has  heard  of 
me,  is  this  request,  which  I  transcribe:  'Signore,  la  vostra 
bonta  mi  fa  ardita  di  chiedervi  un  favore,  me  lo  accor- 
darete  voi  ?  Non  2)artite  da  Ravenna  senza  milord.''  Of 
course,  being  now  by  all  the  laws  of  knighthood  captive 
to  a  lady's  request,  I  shall  only  be  at  liberty  on  my  parole 
until  Lord  Byron  is  settled  at  Pisa." 

Shelley  took  his  leave,  after  a  visit  of  ten  days'  duration, 
about  the  l7th  or  18th  of  April.  In  a  letter,  dated  Au- 
gust 26,  he  mentions  having  secured  for  his  lordship  the 
Palazzo  Lanfranchi,  an  old  spacious  building  on  the  Lung' 
Arno,  once  the  family  residence  of  the  destroyers  of  Ugo- 


VIII.]  TUE  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS.  137 

lino,  and  still  said  to  be  haunted  by  their  ghosts.  To- 
wards the  close  of  October,  he  says  they  have  been  ex- 
pecting hiin  any  day  these  six  weeks.  Byron,  however, 
did  not  leave  till  the  morning  of  the  29th.  On  his  road, 
there  occurred  at  Imola  the  accidental  meeting  with  Lord 
Clare.  Clare — who  on  this  occasion  merely  crossed  his 
friend's  path  on  his  way  to  Rome — at  a  later  date  came 
on  purpose  from  Geneva  before  returning  to  England  to 
visit  the  poet,  who,  then  at  Leghorn,  recorded  in  a  letter 
to  Moore  his  sense  of  this  proof  of  old  affection  unde- 
cayed.  At  Bologna — his  next  stage — he  met  Rogers  by 
appointment,  and  the  latter  has  preserved  his  memory  of 
the  event  in  well-known  lines.  Together  tliey  revisited 
Florence  and  its  galleries,  where  they  wore  distracted  by 
the  crowds  of  sight -seeing  visitors.  Byron  must  have 
reached  Pisa  not  later  than  the  2nd  of  November  (1821), 
for  his  first  letter  from  there  bears  the  date  of  the  3rd. 

The  later  months  of  the  poet's  life  at  Ravenna  were 
marked  by  intense  literary  activity.  Over  a  great  part  of 
the  year  was  spread  the  controversy  with  Bowles  about 
Pope,  i.  e.,  between  the  extremes  of  Art  against  Nature, 
and  Nature  against  Art.  It  was  a  controversy  for  the 
most  part  free  from  personal  animus,  and  on  Byron's  part 
the  genuine  expression  of  a  reaction  against  a  reaction. 
To  this  year  belong  the  greater  number  of  the  poet's  His- 
torical Dramas.  What  was  said  of  these  at  the  time  by 
Jeffrey,  Ileber,  and  others,  was  said  with  justice  ;  it  is  sel- 
dom that  the  criticism  of  our  day  finds  so  little  to  reverse 
in  that  of  sixty  years  ago. 

The  author,  having  shown  himself  capable  of  being 
pathetic,  sarcastic,  sentimental,  comical,  and  sublime,  we 
would  be  tempted  to  think  that  he  had  written  these  plays 
to  show,  what  no  one  before  suspected,  that  he  could  also 


138  BYRON.  [ciur. 

be  dull,  were  it  not  fur  liis  own  exorbitant  estimation  of 
tbem.  Lord  Byron  had  few  of  the  powers  of  a  great 
dramatist;  he  had  little  architectural  imagination,  or  ca- 
pacity to  conceive  and  build  up  a  whole.  His  works 
are  mainly  masses  of  fine,  splendid,  or  humorous  writing, 
heaped  together;  the  parts  are  seldom  forged  into  one,  or 
connected  by  any  indissoluble  link.  His  so-called  Dramas 
are  only  poems  divided  into  chapters.  Further,  he  had 
little  of  what  Mr.  Ruskin  calls  Penetrative  Imagination, 
So  it  has  been  plausibly  said  that  he  made  his  men  after 
his  own  image,  his  women  after  his  own  heart.  The  for- 
mer are,  indeed,  rather  types  of  what  he  wished  to  be  than 
what  he  was.  They  are  better,  and  worse,  than  himself. 
They  have  stronger  wills,  more  definite  purposes,  but  less 
genial  and  less  versatile  natures.  But  it  remains  true,  that 
when  he  tried  to  represent  a  character  totally  different 
from  himself,  the  result  is  either  imreal  or  uninteresting. 
Marino  Faliero,  begun  April,  finished  July,  1820,  and  pre- 
fixed by  a  humorous  dedication  to  Goethe — which  was, 
however,  suppressed — was  brought  on  tlie  stage  of  Drury 
Lane  Theatre  early  in  1821,  badly  mangled,  appointed, 
and  acted — and  damned. 

Byron  seems  to  have  been  sincere  in  saying  he  did  not 
intend  any  of  his  plays  to  be  represented.  We  are  more 
inclined  to  accuse  him  of  self-deception  when  lie  asserts 
that  he  did  not  mean  them  to  be  popular ;  but  he  took 
sure  means  to  prevent  them  from  being  so.  Marino  Fa- 
liero, in  particular,  was  pronounced  by  Dr.  John  Watkins 
— old  Grobius  himself — "to  be  the  dullest  of  dull  plays;" 
and  even  the  warmest  admirers  of  the  poet  had  to  confess 
that  the  style  was  cumbrous.  The  story  may  be  true,  but 
it  is  none  the  less  unnatural.  The  characters  are  compar- 
atively  romnionplacc.  the   women    especially  being  mere 


VIII.]  TUE  UISTORICAL  DKAMAS.        •  139 

shadows ;  the  motion  is  slow  ;  and  the  inevitable  passages 
of  fine  writing  are,  as  the  extolled  soliloquy  of  Lioni,  rath- 
er rhetorical  than  imaginative.  The  speeches  of  the  Doge 
are  solemn,  but  prolix,  if  not  ostentatious,  and  —  perhaps 
the  vital  defect — his  cause  fails  to  enlist  our  sympathies. 
Artisticallv,  this  play  was  Byron's  most  elaborate  attempt 
to  revive  the  unities  and  other  restrictions  of  the  severe 
style,  which,  when  he  wrote,  had  been  "vanquished  in  lit- 
erature." "  I  am  persuaded,"  he  writes  in  the  preface, 
"that  a  great  tragedy  is  not  to  be  produced  by  following 
the  old  dramatists,  who  are  full  of  faults,  but  by  producing 
regular  dramas  like  the  Greeks."  He  forgets  that  the 
statement  in  the  mouth  of  a  Greek  dramatist  that  his  play 
was  not  intended  for  the  stage,  would  have  been  a  confes- 
sion of  failure ;  and  that  Aristotle  had  admitted  that  even 
the  Deity  could  not  make  the  Past  present.  The  ethical 
motives  of  Faliero  are,  first,  the  cry  for  vengeance — the  feel- 
ing of  affronted  or  unsatiated  pride — that  runs  through  so 
much  of  the  author's  writing;  and,  second,  the  enthusiasm 
for  public  ends,  which  was  beginning  to  possess  him.  The 
following  lines  have  been  pointed  out  as  embodying  some 
of  Byron's  spirit  of  protest  against  the  mere  selfish  "greasy 
domesticity  "  of  the  Georgian  era : — 

I.  Ber.  "  Such  ties  are  not 

For  those  who  are  called  to  the  high  destinies 
Which  purify  corrupted  commonwealths  : 
We  must  forget  all  feelings  save  the  one, 
We  must  resign  all  passions  save  our  purpose. 
We  must  behold  no  object  save  our  country, 
And  only  look  on  death  as  beautiful 
So  that  the  sacrifice  ascend  to  heaven, 
And  draw  down  freedom  on  her  evermore. 

Cal.      "  But  if  we  fail—  ? 


140  BYRON.  [chap. 

I.  Bkr.  "  They  never  fail  who  die 

In  a  great  cause :  the  block  may  soak  their  gore ; 
Tlu'ir  heads  may  sodden  in  the  sun ;  their  liuibs 
JJe  strung  to  eity  gates  and  castle  walls, 
Hut  still  their  si)irit  walks  abroad  " 

— a  passage  wliicli,  after  his  woiit,  lie  spoils  by  platitudes 
about  the  precisian  l>rutus,  who  certainly  did  not  give 
Home  liherty. 

Byron's  other  Venetian  Drama,  the  Two  Foscarl,  com- 
posed at  Ravenna,  between  the  1  llh  of  Jiuie  ami  the  lUth 
of  July,  18i'l,  and  j)ublished  in  the  following  December, 
is  another  record  of  the  same  failure  and  the  same  morli- 
fication,  due  to  the  same  causes.  In  this  play,  as  Jeffrey 
points  out,  the  preservation  of  the  unities  had  a  still  more 
disastrous  effect.  Tlie  author's  determination  to  avoid 
rant  did  not  hinder  his  frequently  adopting  an  inflated 
style ;  while  professing  to  follow  the  ancient  rules,  he  for- 
gets the  warning  of  Horace  so  far  as  to  permit  the  groans 
of  the  tortured  Foscari  to  be  heard  on  the  stage.  The 
declamations  of  Marina  produce  no  effect  on  the  action, 
and  the  vindictivencss  of  Loridano,  though  effectively 
pointed  in  the  closing  words,  "  He  has  paid  me,"  is  not 
rendered  interesting,  cither  by  a  well  established  injury, 
or  by  any  trace  of  lago's  subtle  genius, 

Tn  the  same  volume  appeared  Sardftnapalus,  written  in 
the  [)i'cvious  May,  and  dedicated  to  (roethe.  In  this  play, 
whii'li  marks  the  author's  last  reversion  to  the  East,  we 
are  more  arrested  by  the  majesty  of  the  theme — 

"  Tliirtcen  hundred  years 
f)f  etn]iire  ending  like  a  shepherd's  tale" — 

by  the  grandeur  of  some  of  the  passages,  and  by  the  de- 
velopment of  the  chief  character,  made   inoiv  vivid  by  its 


Tin.]  HISTORICAL  ROMANCES.  141 

being  distinctly  antobiograpliical.  Sardanapalns  himself 
is  Harold,  raised  "high  on  a  throne,"  and  rousing  himself 
at  the  close  from  a  life  of  effeminate  lethargy.  Myrrha 
has  been  often  identified  with  La  Guiccioli,  and  the  hero's 
relation  to  his  Queen  Zarina  compared  with  that  of  the 
poet  to  his  wife ;  but  in  his  portrait  of  the  former  the  au- 
thor's defective  capacity  to  represent  national  character  is 
manifest :  Myrrha  is  only  another  Gulnare,  Medora,  or  Zu- 
leika.  In  the  domestic  play  of  Wenie?'  —  completed  at 
Pisa  in  January,  1822,  and  published  in  November — there 
is-  no  merit  either  of  plan  or  execution ;  for  the  plot  is 
taken,  with  little  change,  from  "  The  German's  Tale,"  writ- 
ten by  Harriet  Lee,  and  the  treatment  is  throughout  pro- 
saic. Byron  was  never  a  master  of  blank  verse ;  but  Wer- 
ner, his  sole  success  on  the  modern  British  stage,  is  writ- 
ten in  a  style  fairly  parodied  by  Campbell,  when  he  cut 
part  of  the  author's  preface  into  lines,  and  pronounced 
them  as  good  as  any  in  the  play. 

The  Deformed  Transformed,  another  adaptation,  sug- 
gested by  a  forgotten  novel  called  The  Three  Brothers, 
with  reminiscences  of  Faust,  and  possibly  of  Scott's  Black 
Dwarf,  was  begun  at  Pisa  in  1821,  but  not  published  till 
January,  1824.  This  fragment  owes  its  interest  to  the 
bitter  infusion  of  personal  feeling  in  the  first  scene,  and 
its  occasional  charm  to  the  march  of  some  of  the  lines,  es- 
pecially those  describing  the  Bourbon's  advance  on  Rome," 
but  the  effect  of  the  magical  element  is  killed  by  previous 
parallels,  while  the  story  is  chaotic  and  absurd.  The  De- 
forvicd  Transformed  bears  somewhat  the  same  relation  to 
Manfred,  as  Heaven  and  Earth — an  occasionally  graphic 
dream  of  the  world  before  the  Deluge,  written  October, 
1821,  and  issued  about  the  same  time  as  Moore's  Loves  of 
the  Angels,  on  a  similar  theme — does  to  Cain.     The  last 


112  BYRON.  [chap. 

nained,  begun  in  July,  and  finished  at  Ravenna  in  Septem- 
ber, is  the  author's  highest  contribution  to  the  mctaphys- 
u'ixl  poetry  of  the  century.  In  Cain  Byron  grapples  with 
the  perplexities  of  a  belief  which  he  never  cither  accepted 
or  rejected,  and  with  the  yet  deeper  problems  of  life  and 
death,  of  good  and  ill.  In  dealing  with  these,  his  position 
is  not  that  of  one  justifying  the  ways  of  God  to  man — 
though  he  somewhat  disingenuously  appeals  to  Milton  in 
his  defence — nor  that  of  the  definite  antagonism  of  Queen 
Mab.  The  distinction  in  this  respect  between  Byron  and 
Shelley  cannot  be  over-eniphasizcd.  The  latter  had  a  firm 
faith  other  than  that  commonly  called  Christian.  The 
former  was,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  a  sceptic,  be- 
set with  d(.)ubts,  and  seel<ing  for  a  solution  which  he  never 
found,  shifting  in  his  expression  of  them  with  every  change 
of  a  fickle  and  inconsistent  temperament.  The  atmosphere 
of  Cain  is  almost  wholly  negative ;  for  under  the  guise  of 
a  dran)a,  which  is  mainly  a  dialogue  between  two  halves 
of  his  mind,  the  author  appears  to  sweep  aside  with  some- 
thing approaching  to  disdain  tlie  answers  of  a  blindly  ac- 
cepted tradition,  or  of  a  superficial  optimism,  e.g. — 

Cain.  "  Then  my  father's  God  did  well 

Wheu  he  prohibited  the  fatal  tree. 
Lucifer.  "  But  had  done  better  in  not  planting  it." 

Again,  a  kid,  after  suffering  agonies  from  the  sting  of  a 
reptile,  is  restored  by  antidotes — 

"  Behold,  my  son  !  said  Adam,  how  from  evil 

Springs  good ! 
LuciFEB.  "  What  didst  thou  answer  ? 

Cain.  "Nothing;  for 

He  is  my  father ;  but  I  thought  that  'twere 

A  better  portion  for  the  animal 

Never  to  have  been  stung  at  all." 


vni.]  CAIN.  143 

This  rebellious  nature  naturally  yields  to  the  arguments 
of  Lucifer,  a  spirit  in  which  much  of  the  grandeur  of  Mil- 
ton's Satan  is  added  to  the  subtlety  of  Mephistopheles, 
In  the  first  scene  Cain  is  introduced,  rebelling  against  toils 
imposed  on  him  by  an  offence  committed  before  he  was 
born — "  I  sought  not  to  be  born  " — the  answer,  that  toil 
is  a  good,  being  precluded  by  its  authoritative  representa- 
tion as  a  punishment ;  in  which  mood  lie  is  confirmed  by 
the  entrance  and  reasonings  of  the  Tempter,  who  identifies 
the  Deity  with  Seva  the  Destroyer,  hints  at  the  dreadful 
visitation  of  the  yet  untasted  death ;  when  Adah,  entering, 
takes  him  at  first  for  an  angel,  and  then  recognizes  him  as 
a  fiend.  Her  invocation  to  Eve,  and  comparison  of  the 
"  heedless,  harmless,  wantonness  of  bliss  "  in  Eden,  to  the 
later  lot  of  those  girt  about  with  demons  from  whose  fas- 
cination they  cannot  fly,  is  one  of  the  most  striking  in  the 
drama;  as  is  the  line  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  poet's 
most  beautiful  female  character,  to  show  that  God  cannot 

be  alone — 

"  What  else  can  joy  be,  but  diffusing  joy  ?" 

Her  subsequent  contrast  of  Lucifer  with  the  other  an- 
gels is  more  after  the  style  of  Shelley  than  anything  else 

in  Byron — 

"As  the  silent  sunny  moon, 

All  light,  they  look  upon  us.     But  thou  seem'st 

Like  an  ethereal  night,  where  long  white  clouds 

Streak  the  deep  purple,  and  unnumber'd  stars 

Spangle  the  wonderful  mysterious  vault 

With  things  that  look  as  if  they  would  be  suns — 

So  beautiful,  unnumber'd,  and  endearing  ; 

Not  dazzling,  and  yet  drawing  us  to  them. 

They  fill  my  eyes  with  tears,  and  so  dost  thou." 

The  flight  with  Lucifer,  in  the  second  act,  in  the  abyss 
of  space  and  through  the  Hades  of  "  uncreated   night," 


144  HYROX.  [chap. 

with  tlic  vision  of  long-wrecked  worlds,  and  the  "  inter- 
niiuablc  gloomy  realms 

"  Of  swimming  shadows  and  enormous  shapes  " 

— siigprcsted,  as  tlic  author  tells  us,  by  the  reading  of  Oli- 
vier— leaves  us  with  impressions  of  grandeur  and  desola- 
tion which  no  other  passages  of  English  poetry  can  con- 
vey. Lord  Byron  has  elsewhere  exhibited  more  versatil- 
ity of  fancy  and  richness  of  illustration,  but  nowhere  else 
has  he  so  nearly  "struck  the  stars."  From  constellation 
to  constellation  the  pair  speed  on,  cleaving  the  blue  with 
mighty  wings,  but  finding  in  all  a  blank,  like  that  in  Rioh- 
ter's  wonderful  dream.  The  result  on  the  mind  of  Cain 
is  summed  in  the  lines  on  the  fatal  tree — 

"  It  was  a  lying  tree — for  we  know  nothing  ; 
At  least,  it  promised  knowledge  at  the  price 
Of  deatli — but  knowkdye  still ;  but  what  knows  man  ?" 

A  more  modern  poet  answers,  after  beating  at  the  same 
iron  gates,  "  Behold,  we  know  not  anything."  The  most 
beautiful  remaining  passage  is  Cain's  reply  to  the  question 
— what  is  more  beautiful  to  liim  than  all  that  he  has  seen 
in  the  "unimaginable  ether?'' — 

"My  sister  Adah. — All  the  stars  of  heaven. 
The  deep  blue  noon  of  night,  lit  by  an  orb 
Which  looks  a  spirit,  or  a  spirit's  world — 
The  hues  of  twilight — the  sun's  gorgeous  coming — 
His  setting  indescribable,  which  fills 
My  eyes  with  pleasant  tears  as  I  behold 
Him  sink,  and  feel  my  heart  flow  softly  with  him 
Along  that  western  paradise  of  clouds — 
The  forest  shade — the  green  bough — the  bird's  voice — 
The  vesper  bird's,  which  seems  to  sing  of  love, 
And  niin,i,'les  with  the  song  of  cherubim, 


Tin.]  CAIN.  145 

As  the  day  closes  over  Eden's  walls : — 
All  these  are  nothing,  to  my  eyes  and  heart, 
Like  Adah's  face." 

Lucifer's  speech  at  the  close  of  the  act  is  perhaps  too 
Miltonic  to  be  absolutely  original.  Returning  to  earth, 
we  have  a  pastoral,  of  which  Sir  Egerton  Brydges  justly 
and  sufficiently  remarks,  "The  censorious  may  say  what 
they  will,  but  there  are  speeches  in  the  mouth  of  Cain  and 
Adah,  especially  regarding  their  child,  which  nothing  in 
English  poetry  but  the  '  wood-notes  wild '  of  Shakspeare 
ever  equalled."  Her  cry,  as  Cain  seems  to  threaten  the 
infant,  followed  by  the  picture  of  his  bloom  and  joy,  is  a 
touch  of  perfect  pathos.  Then  comes  the  interview  with 
the  pious  Abel,  who  is  amazed  at  the  lurid  light  in  the 
eyes  of  his  brother,  with  the  spheres  "  singing  in  thunder 
round  "  him — the  two  sacrifices,  the  murder,  the  shriek  of 

Zillah— 

"  Father !  Eve  ! 
Adah  !  come  hither !     Death  is  in  the  world  ;" 

Cain's  rallying  from  stupor — 

"  I  am  awake  at  last — a  dreary  dream 
Had  madden'd  me, — but  he  shall  never  wake :" 

the  curse  of  Eve  ;  and  the  close — [xai^oy  ij  Kara  Mtcpva— 

Cain.  "Leave  me. 

Adah.  "  Why  all  have  left  thee. 

Cain.  "  And  wherefore  lingerest  thou  ?     Dost  thou  not  fear  ? 
Adah.  "  I  fear 

Nothing  except  to  leave  thee. 

:)c  *  *  *  *  *  * 

Cain.    "  Eastward  from  Eden  will  we  take  our  way. 
Adah.  "  Leave !  thou  shalt  be  my  guide ;  and  may  our  God 
Be  thine  !     Now  let  us  carry  forth  our  children. 

7* 


HG  BYKUN.  [CUAP. 

Cain.  "  And  ht  who  lictli  there  was  childless.  I 
Have  dried  the  fountain  of  a  gentle  race. 
0  Abel ! 

Adah.  "  Peace  be  with  him. 

Cain.  "  But  with  »ie.'" 

Cain,  between  which  and  the  Cenci  lies  the  award  of 
the  greatest  single  performance  in  dramatic  shape  of  our 
century,  raised  a  storm.  It  was  published,  with  Sarda- 
napalus  and  The  Two  Foscari,  in  December,  1821,  and  the 
critics  soon  gave  evidence  of  the  truth  of  Elze's  remark — 
"  In  England  freedom  of  action  is  cramped  by  the  want 
of  freedom  of  thought.  The  converse  is  the  case  with 
us  Germans ;  freedom  of  thought  is  restricted  by  the 
want  of  freedom  in  action.  To  us  tliis  scepticism  pre- 
sents nothing  in  the  least  fearful."  But  with  us  it  ap- 
peared as  if  a  literary  Guy  Fawkes  had  been  detected  in 
the  act  of  blowing  up  half  the  cathedrals  and  all  the 
•y  chapels  of  the  country.  The  rage  of  insular  orthodoxy 
was  in  proportion  to  its  impotence.  Every  scribbler  with 
a  cassock  denounced  the  book  and  its  author,  though  few 
attemped  to  answer  him.  The  hubbub  was  such  that 
Byron  wrote  to  Murray,  authorizing  him  to  disclaim  all 
responsibility,  and  offering  to  refund  the  payment  be  had 
received.  "Say  that  both  you  dnd  Mr.  Gifford  remon- 
strated. I  will  come  to  England  to  stand  trial.  'Me  me 
adsum  qui  feci'"  —  and  much  to  the  same  effect.  The 
book  was  pirated ;  and  on  the  publisher's  application  to 
have  an  injunction.  Lord  Eldon  refused  to  grant  it.  The 
majority  of  the  minor  reviewers  became  hysterical,  and 
I)r.  Watkins,  amid  much  almost  inarticulate  raving,  said 
that  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  had  gratefully  accepted  the 
dedication,  would  go  down  to  posterity  with  the  brand 
of  Cain  upon  his  brow.     Several  even  of  the  higher  crit- 


vui.]  CAIN.  147 

ics  took  friglit.  Jeffrey,  while  protesting  his  appreciation 
of  the  literary  merits  of  the  work,  lamented  its  tendency 
to  unsettle  faith.  Mr.  Campbell  talked  of  its  "  frightful 
audacity."  Bishop  Heber  wrote  at  great  length  to  prove 
that  its  spirit  was  more  dangerous  than  that  of  Paradise 
Lost  —  and  succeeded.  The  Quarterly  began  to  cool  to- 
wards the  author.  Moore  wrote  to  him,  that  Cain  was 
"wonderful,  terrible,  never  to  be  forgotten,"  but  "dread- 
ed and  deprecated "  the  influence  of  Shelley.  Byrou 
showed  the  letter  to  Shelley,  who  wrote  to  a  common 
friend  to  assure  Mr.  Moore  that  he  had  not  the  smallest 
influence  over  his  lordship  in  matters  of  religion,  and 
only  wished  he  had,  as  he  would  "  employ  it  to  eradicate 
from  his  great  mind  the  delusions  of  Christianity,  which 
seem  perpetually  to  recur,  and  to  lie  in  ambush  for  the 
hours  of  sickness  and  distress."  Shelley  elsewhere  writes : 
"What  think  you  of  Lord  B.'s  last  volume?  In  my 
opinion  it  contains  finer  poetry  than  has  appeared  in 
England  since  Paradise  Lost.  Cain  is  apocalyptic;  it  is 
a  revelation  not  before  communicated  to  man."  In  the 
same  strain,  Scott  says  of  the  author  of  the  "  grand  and 
tremendous  drama:"  "He  has  certainly  matched  Milton 
on  his  own  ground."  The  worst  effect  of  those  attacks 
appears  in  the  shifts  to  which  Byron  resorted  to  explain 
himself  —  to  be  imputed,  however,  not  to  cowardice,  but 
to  his  wavering  habit  of  mind.  Great  writers  in  our 
country  have  frequently  stirred  difficult  questions  in  re- 
ligion and  life,  and  then  seemed  to  be  half  scared,  liko 
Rouget  de  Lisle,  by  the  reverberation  of  their  own  voices. 
Shelley  almost  alone  was  always  ready  to  declare,  "  I  meant 
what  I  said,  and  stand  to  it." 

Byron  having,  with  or  without  design,  arraigned  some 
of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  his  countrymen,  proceeded 


M8  BYRON.  [fiiAP. 

in  the  following  month  (October,  1821)  to  commit  an  out- 
nv^c,  yot  more  keenly  resented,  on  the  memory  of  their 
sainted  kinij,  the  pattern  of  private  virtue  and  public  vi(;e, 
George  III.  The  perpetration  of  this  occurred  in  the 
course  of  the  last  of  his  numerous  literary  duels,  of  wliieli 
it  was  the  close.  That  Mr.  Southey  was  a  well-meaning 
and  independent  man  of  letters  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
It  docs  not  require  the  conclusive  testimony  of  the  es- 
teem of  Savage  Landor  to  compel  our  respect  for  the  au- 
thor of  the  Life  of  A^elson,  and  the  open-handed  friend 
of  Coleridge;  nor  is  it  any  dis{)aragement  that,  with 
the  last-named  and  with  Wordsworth,  he  in  middle  life 
changed  his  political  and  other  opinions.  But  in  his  deal- 
ings with  Lord  Byron,  Southey  had  "  eaten  of  the  insane 
root."  He  attacked  a  man  of  incomparably  superior 
powers,  for  whom  his  utter  want  of  humour — save  in  its 
comparatively  childish  forms  —  made  him  a  ludicrously 
unequal  match,  and  paid  the  penalty  in  being  gibbeted  in 
satires  that  will  endure  with  the  language.  The  strife, 
which  seems  to  have  begun  on  Byron's  leaving  England, 
rose  to  its  height  wlirii  his  lordship,  in  the  humorous  ob- 
servations and  serious  defence  of  his  character  against 
"the  Remarks'"  in  Blackwood,  1819  (August),  accused  the 
Laureate  of  apostasy,  treason,  and  slander. 

In  1821,  when  the  latter  published  his  Vinion  of  Judg- 
ment—  the  most  quaintly  preposterous  panegyric  ever 
peiHK'd  —  he  prefixed  to  it  a  long  explanatory  note,  in 
the  course  of  which  he  characterizes  Don  Juan  as  a 
"  monstrous  combination  of  horror  and  mockery,  lewdness 
and  impiety,"  regrets  that  it  has  not  been  brought  un- 
der the  lash  of  the  law,  salutes  the  writer  as  chief  of  the 
Satanic  school,  inspired  by  the  spirits  of  Moloch  and 
Belial,  and  refers  to  the  remorse  that  will  overtake  him 


VIII.]  VISION  OF  JUDGMENT.  149 

on  his  death -bed.  To  which  Byron,  inter  alia:  "Mr. 
Southey,  with  a  cowardly  ferocity,  exults  over  the  antici- 
pated death-bed  repentance  of  the  objects  of  his  dislike, 
and  indulges  himself  in  a  pleasant  '  Vision  of  Judgment,' 
in  prose  as  well  as  verse,  full  of  impious  impudence. 
What  Mr.  Southey's  sensations  or  ours  may  be  in  the 
awful  moment  of  leaving  this  state  of  existence,  neither  he 
nor  we  can  pretend  to  decide.  In  common,  I  presume, 
with  most  men  of  any  reflection,  /  have  not  waited  for  a 
death-bed  to  repent  of  many  of  my  actions,  notwithstand- 
ing the  'diabolical  pride'  which  this  pitiful  renegado  in 
his  rancour  would  impute  to  those  who  scorn  him."  This 
dignified,  though  trenchant,  rejoinder  would  have  been  un- 
answerable ;  but  the  writer  goes  on  to  charge  the  Laureate 
with  spreading  calumnies.  To  this  charge  Southey,  in 
January,  1822,  replies  with  "a  direct  and  positive  denial," 
and  then  proceeds  to  talk  at  large  of  the  "  whip  and 
branding  iron,"  "  slaves  of  sensuality,"  "  stones  from 
slings,"  "  Goliaths,"  "  public  panders,"  and  what  not,  in  the 
manner  of  the  brave  days  of  old. 

In  February,  Byron,  having  seen  this  assault  in  the 
Courier,  writes  off  in  needless  heat,  "  I  have  got  Southey's 
pretended  reply;  what  remains  to  be  done  is  to  call  him 
out"  —  and  despatches  a  cartel  of  mortal  defiance.  Mr. 
Douglas  Kinnaird,  through  whom  this  was  sent,  judicious- 
ly suppressed  it,  and  the  author's  thirst  for  literary  blood 
was  destined  to  remain  unquenched.  Meanwhile  he  had 
written  his  own  Vision  of  Judgment.  This  extraordinary 
work,  having  been  refused  by  both  Murray  and  Longman, 
appeared  in  1822  in  the  pages  of  the  Liberal.  It  passed 
the  bounds  of  British  endurance ;  and  the  publisher,  Mr. 
John  Hunt,  was  prosecuted  and  fined  for  the  publication. 

Keaders  of  our  day  will  generally  admit  that  the  "gouty 


150  DYUUX.  [cuAi-.  viii. 

liexameters"  of  the  original  poem,  which  celebrates  the 
apotheosis  of  King  George  in  heaven,  arc  much  more 
blasplienious  than  the  ottava  rhna  of  the  travesty,  which 
professes  to  narrate  the  difficulties  of  his  getting  there. 
Dyron's  Vision  of  Judgment  is  as  unmistakably  the  first 
of  parodies  as  the  Iliad  is  the  first  of  epics,  or  the  Pil- 
f/rini's  Progress  the  first  of  allegories,  \n  execution  it  is 
ahuost  perfect.  Don  Juan  is  in  scope  and  magnitude  a 
far  wider  work ;  but  no  considerable  scries  of  stanzas  in 
Don  Juan  are  so  free  from  serious  artistic  flaw.  From 
first  to  last,  every  epithet  hits  the  white ;  every  line  that 
does  not  convulse  with  laughter  stings  or  lashes.  It  rises 
to  greatness  by  the  fact  that,  underneath  all  its  lambent 
buffoonery,  it  is  aflame  with  righteous  wrath.  Nowhere 
in  such  space,  save  in  some  of  the  prose  of  Swift,  is  there 
in  English  so  much  scathing  satire. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

[1821-1823.] 
PISA. GEXOA. DON    JUAN. 

Byron,  having  arrived  at  Pisa  with  his  troop  of  carriages, 
horses,  dogs,  fowls,  monkeys,  and  servants,  settled  himself 
quietly  in  the  Palazzo  Lanfranchi  for  ten  months,  inter- 
rupted only  by  a  sojourn  of  six  weeks  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Leghorn.  His  life  in  the  old  feudal  building 
followed  in  the  main  the  tenour  of  his  life  at  Ravenna. 
He  rose  late,  received  visitors  in  the  afternoons,  played 
billiards,  rode  or  practised  with  his  pistols  in  concert  with 
Shelle}",  whom  he  refers  to  at  this  time  as  "  the  most  com- 
panionable man  under  thirty  "  he  had  ever  met.  Both 
poets  were  good  shots,  but  Byron  the  safest ;  for,  though 
his  hand  often  shook,  he  made  allowance  for  the  vibration, 
and  never  missed  his  mark.  On  one  occasion  he  set  up 
a  slender  cane,  and  at  twenty  paces  divided  it  with  his 
bullet.  The  early  part  of  the  evening  he  gave  to  a  frugal 
meal  and  the  society  of  La  Guiccioli  —  now  apparently, 
in  defiance  of  the  statute  of  limitations,  established  under 
the  same  roof — and  then  sat  late  over  his  verses.  He  was 
disposed  to  be  more  sociable  than  at  Venice  or  Ravenna, 
and  occasionally  entertained  strangers ;  but  his  intimate 
.  acquaintanceship  was  confined  to  Captain  AYilliams  and 
his  wife,  and  Shelley's  cousin,  Captain  Medwin.     The  lat- 


152  BYRON.  [cHAi'. 

ti  T  iiscil  frcquoiitly  to  dine  and  sit  with  his  Lost  till  the 
iii(iriiiii<x,  collt'Oting  materials  for  the  Conversations  which 
lie  afterwards  gave  to  the  world.  The  value  of  these 
reminiscences  is  impaired  by  the  fact  of  their  recording, 
as  serious  revelations,  the  absurd  confidences  in  which 
tlie  poet's  humour  for  mystification  w:vs  wont  to  indulge. 
Another  of  the  group,  an  Irishman,  called  Taafe,  is  made, 
in  his  lordship's  correspondence  of  the  period,  to  cut  a 
somewhat  comical  figure.  The  master- passion  of  this 
worthy  and  genial  fellow  was  to  get  a  publisher  for  a  fair 
commentary  on  Dante,  to  which  he  had  firmly  linked  a 
very  bad  translation,  and  for  about  six  months  Byron 
pesters  Murray  with  constant  appeals  to  satisfy  him ;  e.  g., 
November  16,  "lie  must  be  gratified,  though  the  review- 
ers will  make  him  suffer  more  tortures  than  there  arc  in 
his  original."  March  6,  "  lie  will  die  if  he  is  not  pub- 
lished; he  will  be  damned  if  he  is;  but  that  he  don't 
mind."  March  8,  "  I  make  it  a  point  that  he  shall  be  in 
print ;  it  will  make  the  man  so  exuberantly  happy.  lie  is 
such  a  good-natured  Christian  that  we  must  give  him  a 
shove  through  the  press.  Besides,  he  has  had  another  fall 
from  his  horse  into  a  ditch."  Taafe,  whose  horsemanship 
was  on  a  par  with  his  poetry,  can  hardly  have  been  con- 
sulted as  to  the  form  assumed  by  these  ai)parcntly  fruit- 
less recommendations,  so  characteristic  of  the  writer's  fre- 
quent  kindliness  and  constant  love  of  mischief.  About 
this  time  Byron  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Shepherd,  a 
gentleman  in  Somersetshire,  referring  to  the  death  of  his 
wife,  among  whose  papers  he  had  found  the  record  of  a 
touching,  because  evidently  heart-felt,  prayer  for  the  poet's 
reformation,  conversion,  and  restored  peace  of  mind.  To 
this  letter  he  at  once  returned  an  answer,  marked  by  much 
of  the  fine  feeling  of  his  best  moods.     Pisa,  Decenjber  8 : 


IX.]  PISA.  153 

"  Sir,  I  have  received  your  letter.  I  need  not  say  that  the 
extract  which  it  contains  has  affected  me,  because  it  would 
imply  a  want  of  all  feeling  to  have  read  it  wdth  indiffer- 
ence. .  .  .  Your  brief  and  simple  picture  of  the  excellent 
person,  whom  I  trust  you  will  again  meet,  cannot  be  con- 
templated without  the  admiration  due  to  her  virtues  and 
her  pure  and  unpretending  piety.  I  do  not  know  that  I 
ever  met  with  anything  so  unostentatiously  beautiful.  In- 
disputably, the  firm  believers  in  the  Gospel  have  a  great 
advantage  over  all  others — for  this  simple  reason,  that  if 
true  they  will  have  their  reward  hereafter ;  and  if  there  be 
no  hereafter,  they  can  but  be  with  the  infidel  in  his  eter- 
nal sleep.  .  .  .  But  a  man's  creed  does  not  depend  upon 
himself:  who  can  say,  I  will  believe  this,  that,  or  the 
other?  and  least  of  all  that  which  he  least  can  compre- 
hend. ...  I  can  assure  you  that  not  all  the  fame  which 
ever  cheated  humanity  into  higher  notions  of  its  own  im- 
portance would  ever  weigh  in  my  mind  against  the  pure 
and  pious  interest  which  a  virtuous  being  may  be  pleased 
to  take  in  my  behalf.  In  this  point  of  view  I  would  not 
exchange  the  prayer  of  the  deceased  in  my  behalf  for  the 
united  glory  of  Homer,  Caesar,  and  Napoleon." 

The  letter  to  Lady  Byron,  which  he  afterwards  showed 
to  Lady  Blessington,  must  have  borne  about  the  same 
date ;  and  we  have  a  further  indication  of  his  thoughts  re- 
verting homeward  in  an  urgent  request  to  Murray — writ- 
ten on  December  10th,  Ada's  sixth  birthday — to  send  his 
daughter's  miniature.  After  its  arrival  nothing  gave  him 
greater  pleasure  than  to  be  told  of  its  strong  likeness  to 
himself.  In  the  course  of  the  same  month  an  event  oc- 
curred which  strangely  illustrates  the  manners  of  the  place, 
and  the  character  of  the  two  poets.  An  unfortunate  fa- 
natic having  taken  it  into  his  head  to  steal  the  wafer-box 


164  initUX.  [chap. 

out  of  u  church  at  Lucca,  and  being  detected,  was,  in  ac- 
cordance witli  the  ecclesiastical  law  till  lately  maintained 
ai^ainst  sacrilege,  condemned  to  be  burnt  alive.  Shelley, 
who  believed  that  the  sentence  would  really  be  carried 
into  effect,  proposed  to  Byron  that  they  should  gallop  off 
together,  and  by  aid  of  their  servants  rescue  by  force  the 
intended  victim.  IJyron,  however,  preferred,  in  the  first 
phvce,  to  rely  on  diploniacy  ;  some  vigorous  letters  passed; 
ultimately  a  representation,  conveyed  by  Taafe  to  the  Eng- 
lish Ambassador,  led  to  a  commutation  of  the  sentence,  and 
the  man  was  sent  to. the  galleys. 

The  January  of  1822  was  marked  by  the  addition  to 
the  small  circle  of  Captain  E.  J.  Trclawny,  the  famous 
rover  and  bold  free-lance  (now  sole  survivor  of  the  re- 
markable group),  who  accompanied  Lord  Byron  to  Greece, 
and  has  recorded  a  variety  of  incidents  of  the  last  months 
of  his  life.  Trclawny,  who  appreciated  Shelley  with  an 
intensity  that  is  often  apt  to  be  exclusive,  saw,  or  has  re- 
ported, for  the  most  part  the  weaker  side  of  Byron.  "We 
arc  constrained  to  accept  as  correct  the  conjecture  that  his 
judgment  was  biassed  by  their  rivalry  in  physical  prowess, 
and  the  political  differences  which  afterwards  developed 
between  them.  Letters  to  his  old  correspondents  —  to 
Sc(jtt  about  the  Waverleys,  to  Murray  about  the  Dramas, 
and  the  Vision  of  Judf/ynent,  and  Cain — make  up  almost 
the  sole  record  of  the  poet's  jiursuits  during  the  five  fol- 
lowing months.  On  February  G  he  sent,  through  Mr. 
Kinnaird,  the  challenge  to  Southey,  of  the  suppression  of 
which  he  was  not  aware  till  May  17.  The  same  letter  con- 
tains a  sheaf  of  the  random  cynicisms,  as — "Cash  is  vir- 
tue," "Money  is  power;  and  when  Socrates  said  he  knew 
nothing,  he  meant  he  had  not  a  drachma" — by  which  he 
sharpened  4he  shafts  of  his  assailants.     A  little  later,  ou 


IX.]  PISA.  155 

occasion  of  the  deatli  of  Lady  Noel,  he  expresses  hunself 
with  natural  bitterness  on  hearing  that  she  had  in  her  will 
recorded  a  wish  against  his  daughter  Ada  seeing  his  por- 
trait. In  March  he  sat,  along  with  La  Guiccioli,  to  the 
sculptor  Bartolini.  On  the  24th,  when  the  company  were 
on  one  of  their  riding  excursions  outside  the  town,  a  half- 
drunken  dragoon  on  horseback  broke  through  them,  and 
by  accident  or  design  knocked  Shelley  from  his  seat. 
Byron,  pursuing  him  along  the  Lung'  Arno,  called  for  his 
name,  and,  taking  him  for  an  officer,  flung  his  glove.  The 
sound  of  the  fray  brought  the  servants  of  the  Lanf ranch i 
to  the  door;  and  one  of  them,  it  was  presumed — though 
in  the  scuffle  everything  remained  uncertain  —  seriously 
wounded  the  dragoon  in  the  side.  An  investigation  en- 
sued, as  the  result  of  which  the  Gambas  were  ultimately 
exiled  from  Tuscany,  and  the  party  of  friends  was  practi- 
cally broken  up.  Shelley  and  his  wife,  with  the  AVilliarases 
and  Trelawny,  soon  after  settled  at  the  Villa  Magni  at  Le- 
rici,  in  the  Gulf  of  Spezia.  Byron,  with  the  Countess  and  , 
her  brother,  established  themselves  in  the  Villa  Rossa,  at/ 
Monte  Nero,  a  suburb  of  Leghorn,  from  which  port  at  this 
date  the  remains  of  Allegra  were  conveyed  to  England. 

Among  the  incidents  of  this  residence  were,  the  homage 
paid  to  the  poet  by  a  party  of  Americans ;  the  painting 
of  his  portrait  and  that  of  La  Guiccioli  by  their  compa- 
triot. West,  who  has  left  a  pleasing  account  of  his  visits ; 
Byron's  letter  making  inquiry  about  the  country  of  Boli- 
var (where  it  was  his  fancy  to  settle) ;  and  another  of 
those  disturbances  by  which  he  seemed  destined  to  be 
harassed.  One  of  his  servants  —  among  whom  were  un- 
ruly spirits,  apparently  selected  wdth  a  kind  of  Corsair 
bravado — had  made  an  assault  on  Count  Pietro,  wounding 
him  in  the  face.     This  outburst,  though  followed  by  tears 


166  BYRON.  [cuAP. 

ami  pcnitoiict',  funfirmcil  tlic  iiiipivssKjii  (jf  tlio  Tuscan  po- 
lice tliat  llic  whole  coiupaiiy  were  (laii;j;eious,  and  made  the 
Government  press  for  their  departure.  In  tlie  mitlst  of  the 
uproar,  tliere  suddenly  appeaa-ed  at  the  vilhi  Mr.  Leii^h  Hunt, 
with  ])is  wife  and  six  cliildren.  They  had  taken  passage 
to  Genoa,  wliere  they  were  received  by  Trehiwny,  in  com- 
mand of  the  "Bolivar" — a  yacht  constructed  in  that  port 
for  Lord  Byron,  simultaneously  with  the  "Don  Juan"  for 
Shelley.  The  latter,  on  hearing  of  the  arrival  of  his 
friends,  came  to  meet  them  at  Leghorn,  ami  went  with 
them  to  Pisa.  Early  in  July  they  were  all  established  on 
the  Lung'  Arno,  having  assigned  to  them  the  ground-floor 
of  the  palazzo. 

We  have  now  to  deal  briefly — amid  conflicting  assever- 
ations it  is  hard  to  deal  fairly — with  the  last  of  the  vexa- 
tiously  controverted  episodes  which  need  perplex  our  nar- 
rative. Byron,  in  wishing  Moore  from  Ravenna  a  merry 
Christmas  for  1820,  proposes  that  they  shall  embark  to- 
gether in  a  newspaper,  "  with  some  improvement  on  the 
plan  of  the  present  scoundrels,"  "  to  give  the  age  some 
new  lights  on  policy,  poesy,  biography,  criticism,  morality, 
theology,"  «tc.  Moore  absolutely  refusing  to  entertain  the 
idea.  Hunt's  name  was  brought  forward  in  connexion  with 
it,  during  the  visit  of  Shelley.  Shortly  after  the  return  of 
the  latter  to  Pisa,  he  writes  (August  2G)  to  Hunt,  stating 
that  l»yron  was  anxious  to  start  a  pcrio(lical  work,  to  be 
conducted  in  Italy,  ami  had  proposed  that  they  should 
both  go  shares  in  the  concern,  on  which  follow  some  sug- 
gestions of  dilHoulties  about  money.  Nevertheless,  in  Au- 
gust, 1821,  he  presses  Hunt  to  come.  Moore,  on  the  other 
hand,  strongly  remonstrates  against  the  project.  "  I  heard 
some  days  ago  that  Leigh  Hunt  was  on  his  way  to  you 
uitli  all  his  family;  and  the  idea  seems  to  be  that  you  and 


IX.]  PISA.  157 

be  aud  Shelley  are  to  conspire  together  in  the  Examiner, 
I  deprecate  such  a  plan  with  all  my  might.  Partnerships 
in  fame,  like  those  in  trade,  make  the  strongest  party  an- 
swer for  the  rest.  I  tremble 'even  for  you  with  such  a 
bankrupt  Co.  !  You  must  stand  alone."  Shelley  —  who 
bad  in  the  meantime  given  his  bond  to  Byron  for  an  ad- 
vance of  200/.  towards  the  expenses  of  bis  friends,  besides 
assisting  them  himself  to  the  utmost  of  his  power — began, 
shortly  before  their  arrival,  to  express  grave  doubts  as  to 
the  success  of  the  alliance.  His  last  published  letter,  writ- 
ten July  5,  1822,  after  they  had  settled  at  Pisa,  is  full  of 
forebodiugs.     On  the  8tb  he  set  sail  in  the  "Don  Juan" — 

"  That  fatal  and  perfidious  bark, 
Built  in  th'  eclipse,  aud  rigg'd  with  curses  dark," 

and  was  overtaken  by  the  storm  in  which  he  perished. 
Three  days  after,  Trelawny  rode  to  Pisa,  and  told  Byron 
of  his  fears,  when  the  poet's  lips  quivered,  and  his  voice 
faltered.  On  the  22nd  of  July  the  bodies  of  Shelley,  Wil- 
liams, and  Vivian  were  cast  ashore.  On  the  16th  August, 
Hunt,  Byron,  and  Trelawny  were  present  at  the  terribly 
weird  cremation,  which  they  have  all  described,  and  after 
which  they  were  seized  with  a  fit  of  the  hilarious  delirium 
which  is  one  of  the  phases  of  the  tension  of  grief.  By- 
ron's references  to  the  event  are  expressions  less  of  the 
loss  which  he  indubitably  felt,  than  of  his  indignation  at 
the  "  world's  wrong."  "  Thus,"  he  writes,  "  there  is  an- 
other man  gone,  about  whom  the  world  was  ill-naturedly 
and  ignorantly  and  brutally  mistaken.  It  will,  perhaps, 
do  him  justice  now,  when  he  can  be  no  better  for  it." 
Towards  the  end  of  the  same  letter  the  spirit  of  his  dead 
friend  seems  to  inspire  the  sentence — "  With  these  things 
and  these  fellows  it  is  necessary,  in  the  present  clash  of 


168  HYROK.  [cflAP. 

philosophy  and  tyranny,  to  throw  away  the  scabbard.  1 
know  it  is  against  fearful  odds,  but  the  battle  must  be 
fought." 

Meanwhile,  shortly  after  the  new  settlement  at  the  Laa- 
franchi,  the  preparations  for  issuing  the  L'lhentl — edited 
by  Leigh  Hunt  in  Italy,  and  published  by  John  Hunt  in 
London — progi'cssed.  The  first  number,  which  appeared 
in  September,  was  introduced,  after  a  few  words  of  pref- 
ace, by  the  Vision  of  Judyment,  with  the  signature,  Que- 
vedo  Redivivus,  and  adorned  by  Shelley's  translation  of 
the  "May-Day  Night,"  in  Faust.  It  contained,  besides, 
the  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  my  Grandmother's  Review,  an 
indifferent  Florentine  story,  a  German  apologue,  and  a 
gossipping  account  of  Pisa,  presumably  by  Hunt.  Three 
others  followed,  containing  Byron's  Heaven  and  Earth,  his 
translation  of  the  Morgantc  Mar/ffiore,  and  The  Blues — a 
very  slight,  if  not  silly,  satire  on  literary  ladies;  some  of 
Shelley's  posthumous  minor  poems,  among  them  "  I  arise 
from  dreams  of  thee,"  and  a  few  of  Hazlitt's  essays,  in- 
cluding, however,  none  of  his  best.  Leigh  Hunt  himself 
wrote  most  of  the  rest,  one  of  his  contributions  being  a 
palpable  imitation  of  Don  Juan,  entitled  the  Book  of  Be- 
ginnings; but  he  confesses  that,  owing  to  his  weak  health 
and  low  spirits  at  the  time,  none  of  these  did  justice  to  his 
ability  ;  and  the  general  manner  of  the  magazine  being  in- 
sutliciently  vigorous  to  carry  off  the  frequent  eccentricity 
of  its  matter,  the  prejudices  against  it  prevailed,  and  the 
enterprise  came  to  an  end.  Partners  in  failing  concerns 
arc  apt  to  dispute ;  in  this  instance  the  unpleasantness 
which  arose  at  the  time  rankled  in  the  mind  of  the  sur- 
vivor, and  gave  rise  to  his  singularly  tasteless-  and  injudi- 
cious book — a  performance  which  can  be  only  in  j)art  con- 
doned by  the  fact  of  Hunt's  afterwards  expressing  regret, 


IX.]  PISA.  159 

and  practically  withdrawing  it.  He  represents  himself 
throughout  as  a  much-injured  man,  lured  to  Italy  by  mis- 
representations that  he  might  give  the  aid  of  his  journal- 
istic experience  and  undeniable  talents  to  the  advancement 
of  a  mercenary  enterprise,  and  that  when  it  failed  he  was 
despised,  insulted,  and  rejected.  Byron,  on  the  other  hand, 
declares,  "  The  Hunts  pressed  me  to  engage  in  this  work, 
and  in  an  evil  hour  I  consented ;"  and  his  subsequent  ac- 
tion in  the  matter — if  not  always  gentle,  never  unjust — - 
goes  to  verify  his  statements  in  the  letters  of  the  period. 
"I  am  afraid,''  he  writes  from  Genoa,  October  9,  1822, 
"  the  journal  is  a  bad  business.  1  have  done  all  I  can  for 
Leigh  Hunt  since  he  came  here ;  but  it  is  almost  useless. 
His  wife  is  ill,  his  six  children  not  very  tractable,  and  in 
the  affairs  of  this  world  he  himself  is  a  child."  Later  he 
says  to  Murray,  "You  and  your  friends,  by  your  injudi- 
cious rudeness,  cement  a  connexion  which  you  strove  to 
prevent,  and  which,  had  the  Hunts  prospered,  would  not 
in  all  probability  have  continued.  As  it  is  ...  I  can't 
leave  them  among  the  breakers."  On  February  20  we 
have  his  last  word  on  the  subject,  to  the  same  effect. 

In  the  following  sentences  Moore  seems  to  give  a  fair 
statement  of  the  motives  which  led  to  the  establishment 
of  the  unfortunate  journal :  "  The  chief  inducements  on 
the  part  of  Lord  Byron  to  this  unworthy  alliance  were, 
in  the  first  place,  a  wish  to  second  the  kind  views  of  his 
friend  Shelley  in  inviting  Mr.  Hunt  to  Italy ;  and  in  the 
next,  a  desire  to  avail  himself  of  the  aid  of  one  so  experi- 
enced as  an  editor  in  the  favourite  object  he  has  so  long 
contemplated  of  a  periodical  work  in  which  all  the  off- 
spring of  his  genius  might  be  received  as  they  sprung  to 
light."  For  the  accomplishment  of  this  purpose  Mr.  Leigh 
Hunt  was  a  singularly  ill -chosen  associate.     A  man  of 


160  BYRON.  [.HAP. 

Radical  opinions  on  all  matters,  not  only  of  religion  but  of 
society — opinions  which  he  acquired  and  held  easily  but 
firmly — could  never  recognize  the  propriety  of  the  claim 
to  deference  which  "the  noble  poet"  was  always  too  eager 
to  assert,  and  was  inclined  to  take  liberties  which  his  pa- 
tron perhaps  superciliously  repelled.  Mrs.  Hunt  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  a  very  judicious  person.  "  Trelawny 
here,"  said  Byron,  jocularly,  "  has  been  speaking  against 
my  morals."  "  It  is  the  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  them," 
she  replied.  Mr.  Hunt,  by  his  own  admission,  had  '*  pecul- 
iar notions  on  the  subject  of  money."  Byron,  on  his  part, 
was  determined  not  to  be  "  put  upon,"  and  doled  out 
through  his  steward  stated  allowances  to  Hunt,  who  says 
that  only  *'  stern  necessity  and  a  large  family  "  induced 
liim  to  accept  them.  Hunt's  expression  that  the  200/. 
was,  in  the  first  instance,  a  debt  to  Shelley,  points  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  was  remitted  on  that  poet's  death.  Be- 
sides this,  Byron  maintained  the  family  till  they  left  Genoa 
for  Florence,  in  18i,';3,  and  defrayed  up  to  tliat  date  all 
their  expenses.  He  gave  his  contributions  to  the  Liberal 
gratis ;  and,  again  by  Hunt's  own  confession,  left  to  him 
and  his  brother  the  profits  of  the  proprietorship.  Accord- 
ing to  Mr.  Gait,  **  The  whole  extent  of  the  pecuniary  obli- 
gation appears  not  to  have  exceeded  500/. ;  but,  little  or 
great,  the  manner  in  which  it  was  recollected  reflects  no 
credit  either  on  the  head  or  heart  of  the  debtor." 

Of  the  weaknesses  on  which  the  writer — bent  on  veri- 
fying Pope's  lines  on  Atossa  —  from  his  vantage  in  tlio 
ground-floor,  was  enabled  to  dilate,  many  are  but  slightly 
magnified.  We  are  told,  for  instance,  in  very  many  words, 
that  Byron  clung  to  the  privileges  of  his  rank  while  wish- 
ing to  seem  above  them  ;  that  he  had  a  small  library,  and 
was  a  one-sided  critic;  that   Bayle  and  Gibbon  supplied 


IX.]  PISA.  161 

him  with  the  learning  he  had  left  at  school ;  that,  being  a 
good  rider  with  a  graceful  seat,  he  liked  to  be  told  of  it ; 
that  he  showed  letters  he  ought  not  to  have  shown ;  that 
he  pretended  to  think  worse  of  Wordsworth  than  he  did ; 
that  he  knew  little  of  art  or  music,  adored  Rossini,  and 
called  Rubens  a  dauber ;  that,  though  he  wrote  Don  Juan 
under  gin  and  water,  he  had  not  a  strong  head,  &c.,  &c. 
It  is  true,  but  not  new.  But  when  Hunt  proceeds  to  say 
that  Byron  had  no  sentiment;  that  La  Guiccioli  did  not 
really  care  much  about  him ;  that  he  admired  Gifford  be- 
cause he  was  a  sycophant,  and  Scott  because  he  loved  a 
lord  ;  that  he  had  no  heart  for  anything  except  a  feverish 
notoriety ;  that  he  was  a  miser  from  his  birth,  and  had 
"  as  little  regard  for  liberty  as  Alfieri " — it  is  new  enough, 
but  it  is  manifestly  not  true.  Hunt's  book,  which  begins 
with  a  caricature  on  the  frontispiece,  and  is  inspired  in 
the  main  by  uncharitableness,  yet  contains  here  and  there 
gleams  of  a  deeper  insight  than  we  find  in  all  the  volumes 
of  Moore — an  insight  which,  in  spite  of  his  irritated  ego- 
tism, is  the  mark  of  a  man  with  the  instincts  of  a  poet, 
with  some  cosmopolitan  sympathies,  and  a  courage  on  oc- 
casion to  avow  them  at  any  risk.  "  Lord  Byron,"  he  says 
truly,  "  has  been  too  much  admired  by  the  English  be- 
cause he  was  sulky  and  wilful,  and  reflected  in  his  own 
person  their  love  of  dictation  and  excitement.  They  owe 
his  memory  a  greater  regard,  and  would  do  it  much  great- 
er honour,  if  they  admired  him  for  letting  them  know  they 
were  not  so  perfect  a  nation  as  they  supposed  themselves, 
and  that  they  might  take  as  well  as  give  lessons  of  hu- 
manity, by  a  candid  comparison  of  notes  with  civilization 
at  large." 

In  July,  when  at  Leghorn,  the  Gambas  received  orders 
to  leave  Tuscany  ;  and  on  his  return  to  Pisa,  Byron,  being 


162  I5YU0X.  [chap. 

persecuted  by  the  police,  began  to  prepare  for  another 
change.  After  entertaining  projects  about  Greece,  Ameri- 
ca, and  Switzerland  —  Trclawiiv  undertaking  to  have  the 
"Bolivar"  conveyed  over  the  Al})s  to  the  Lake  of  Geneva 
— ^he  decided  on  following  his  friends  to  Genoa.  lie  left 
in  Sej)teniber  with  La  Guiccioli,  passed  by  Lerici  and  Ses- 
tri,  and  then  for  the  ton  remaining  months  of  his  Italian 
life  took  up  his  quarters  at  Albaro,  about  a  mile  to  the 
east  of  the  city,  in  the  Villa  Saluzzo,  which  Mrs.  Shelley 
had  procured  for  him  and  his  party.  She  herself  settled 
with  the  Hunts  —  who  travelled  about  the  same  time,  at 
Byron's  expense,  but  in  their  own  company — in  the  neigh- 
bouring Casa  Negroto.  Not  far  off,  Mr.  Savage  Landor- 
was  in  possession  of  the  Casa  Pallavicini,  but  there  was 
little  intercourse  between  the  three.  Landor  and  Byron, 
in  many  respects  more  akin  than  any  other  two  English- 
men of  their  age,  were  always  separated  by  an  unhappy 
bar  or  intervening  mist.  The  only  family  with  whom  the 
poet  maintained  any  degree  of  intimacy  was  that  of  the 
Earl  of  Blessington,  consisting  of  the  Earl  himself  —  a 
gouty  old  gentleman,  with  stories  about  him  of  the  past — 
the  Countess,  and  her  sister,  Miss  Power,  and  the  "cu- 
pidon  dechaine,"  the  Anglo-French  Count  Alfred  d'Orsay 
— who  were  to  take  part  in  stories  of  the  future.  In  the 
spring  of  1823,  Byron  persuaded  them  to  occupy  the 
Villa  Paradiso,  and  was  accustomed  to  accompany  them 
frequently  on  horseback  excursions  along  the  coast  to  their 
favourite  Nervi.  It  has  been  said  that  Lady  ]>lessing- 
ton's  Conversations  with  Lord  Byron  are,  as  regards  trust- 
worthiness, on  a  par  with  Landor's  Imar/inanj  Conversa- 
tions. Let  this  be  so,  they  are  still  of  interest  on  points 
of  fact  which  it  must  have  been  easier  to  record  than  to 
imagine.     However  adorned,  or  the  reverse,  by  the  fancies 


IX.]  GENOA.  163 

of  a  habitual  novelist,  they  convey  the  impressions  of  a 
good-humoured,  lively,  and  fascinating  woman,  derived 
from  a  more  or  less  intimate  association  with  the  most 
brilliant  man  of  the  age.  Of  his  personal  appearance — a 
matter  of  which  she  was  a  good  judge — we  have  the  fol- 
lowing :  "  One  of  Byron's  eyes  was  larger  than  the  other ; 
his  nose  was  rather  thick,  so  he  was  best  seen  in  pro- 
file ;  his  mouth  was  splendid,  and  his  scornful  expression 
was  real,  not  affected ;  but  a  sweet  smile  often  broke 
through  his  melancholy.  lie  was  at  this  time  very  pale 
and  thin  (which  indicates  the  success  of  his  regimen  of 
reduction  since  leaving  Venice).  His  hair  was  dark 
brown,  here  and  there  turning  grey.  His  voice  was  har- 
monious, clear,  and  low.  There  is  some  gaucherie  in  his 
walk,  from  his  attempts  to  conceal  his  lameness.  Ada's 
portrait  is  like  him,  and  he  is  pleased  at  the  likeness,  but 
hoped  she  would  not  turn  out  to  be  clever — at  any  event 
not  poetical.  He  is  fond  of  gossip,  and  apt  to  speak 
slightingly  of  some  of  his  friends,  but  is  loyal  to  others. 
His  great  defect  is  flippancy,  and  a  total  want  of  self-pos- 
session." The  narrator  also  dwells  on  his  horror  of  in- 
terviewers, by  whom  at  this  time  he  was  even  more  than 
usually  beset.  One  visitor  of  the  period  ingenuously  ob- 
serves— "Certain  persons  will  be  chagrined  to  hear  that 
Byron's  mode  of  life  does  not  furnish  the  smallest  food 
for  calumny."  Another  says,  "I  never  saw  a  countenance 
more  composed  and  still — I  might  even  add,  more  sweet 
and  prepossessing.  But  his  temper  was  easily  ruffled,  and 
for  a  whole  day  ;  he  could  not  endure  the  ringing  of 
bells,  bribed  his  neighbours  to  repress  their  noises,  and 
failing,  retaliated  by  surpassing  them ;  he  never  forgave 
Colonel  Carr  for  breaking  one  of  his  dog's  ribs,  though  he 
generally  forgave  injuries  without  forgetting  them.     He 


164  BYRON.  [chap. 

liail  a  bad  opinion  of  the  inertness  of  the  Genoese;  for 
wlialeviT  1k'  hiinsflf  did  he  did  with  a  will — *  toto  se  cor- 
porc  niiscuit,'  and  was  wont  to  assume  a  sort  of  dictato- 
rial tone — as  if  '  I  have  said  it,  and  it  must  be  so,'  were 
enough." 

From  these  waifs  and  strays  of  gossip  wc  return  to  a 
subject  of  deeper  interest.  The  Countess  of  Blessington, 
with  natural  curiosity,  was  anxious  to  elicit  from  Byron 
some  light  on  the  mystery  of  his  domestic  affairs,  and  re- 
newed the  attempt  previously  made  by  Madame  de  Stael, 
to  induce  him  to  some  movement  towards  a  reconciliation 
with  his  wife.  His  reply  to  this  overture  was  to  show 
her  a  letter  which  he  had  written  to  Lady  Byron  from 
Pisa,  but  never  forwarded,  of  the  tone  of  which  the  fol- 
lowing extracts  must  be  a  sufficient  indication :  "  I  have 
to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  Ada's  hair.  ...  I  also  thank 
you  for  the  inscription  of  the  date  and  name ;  and  I  will 
tell  you  why.  I  believe  they  arc  the  only  two  or  three 
words  of  your  handwriting  in  my  possession,  for  your  let- 
ters I  returned,  and  except  the  two  words — or  rather  the 
one  word  'household'  written  twice  —  in  an  old  account- 
book,  I  have  no  other.  Every  day  which  keeps  us  asun- 
der should,  after  so  long  a  period,  rather  soften  our  mut- 
ual feelings,  which  must  always  have  one  rallying-point  as 
long  as  our  child  exists.  "We  both  made  a  bitter  mistake, 
but  now  it  is  over.  I  considered  our  reunion  as  not  im- 
possible for  more  than  a  year  after  the  separation,  but 
then  I  gave  up  the  hope.  I  am  violent,  but  not  malig- 
nant; for  only  fresh  provocations  can  awaken  my  resent- 
ment. Remember  that  if  you  have  injured  me  in  aught, 
this  forgiveness  is  something,  and  that  if  I  have  injured 
you,  it  is  something  more  still,  if  it  be  true,  as  moralists 
assert,  that  the  most  offending  arc  the  least  forgiving." 


IX.]  GENOA.  165 

"  It  is  a  strange  business,"  says  the  Countess,  about  Lady 
Byron,  "  When  be  was  praising  ber  mental  and  personal 
qualifications,  I  asked  him  bow  all  that  be  now  said  agreed 
with  certain  sarcasms  supposed  to  be  a  reference  to  ber 
in  bis  works.  He  smiled,  shook  bis  head,  and  said,  they 
were  meant  to  spite  and  vex  ber,  when  be  was  wounded 
and  irritated  at  ber  refusing  to  receive  or  answer  his  let- 
ters ;  that  be  was  sorry  he  bad  written  them,  but  might  on 
similar  provocations  recur  to  the  same  vengeance."  On 
another  occasion  be  said,  "  Lady  B.'s  first  idea  is  what  is 
due  to  herself.  I  wish  she  thought  a  little  more  of  what 
is  due  to  others.  My  besetting  sin  is  a  want  of  tbat  self- 
respect  which  she  has  in  excess.  When  I  have  broken 
out,  on  slight  provocation,  into  one  of  my  ungovernable 
fits  of  rage,  ber  calmness  piqued  and  seemed  to  reproach 
me  ;  it  gave  ber  an  air  of  superiority  tbat  vexed  and  in- 
creased my  mauvaise  humeur.''''  To  Lady  Blessington  as 
to  every  one,  he  always  spoke  of  Mrs.  Leigh  with  the  same 
unwavering  admiration,  love,  and  respect. 

"  My  first  impressions  were  melancholy — my  poor  moth- 
er gave  them  ;  but  to  my  sister,  who,  incapable  of  wrong 
herself,  suspected  no  wrong  in  others,  I  owe  the  little  good 
of  which  I  can  boast;  and  bad  I  earlier  known  ber  it 
might  have  influenced  my  destiny.  Augusta  was  to  me 
in  the  hour  of  need  a  tower  of  strength.  Her  affection 
was  my  last  rallying-point,  and  is  now  the  only  bright  spot 
that  the  horizon  of  England  offers  to  my  view.  She  has 
given  me  such  good  advice — and  yet,  finding  me  incapable 
of  following  it,  loved  and  pitied  me  but  the  more  because 
I  was  erring."  Similarly,  in  the  height  of  his  spleen, 
writes  Leigh  Hunt — "I  believe  there  did  exist  one  per- 
son to  whom  be  would  have  been  generous,  if  she  pleased  : 
perhaps  was  so.     At  all  events,  be  left  ber  the  bulk  of  bis 


166  BYRON.  [nixp. 

property,  and  always  spoke  of  her  witli  tlio  greatest  esteem. 
This  was  his  sister,  Mrs.  Leigh,  lie  told  me  she  used  to 
call  him  'l>al>y  ]>yroii.'  It  was  easy  to  see  that  of  the 
two  persons  she  had  by  far  the  greater  judgment." 
—  Byron,  having  laid  aside  Don  Juan  for  more  than  a 
year,  in  deference  to  La  Guiecioli,  was  permitted  to  re- 
sume it  again  in  July,  1822,  on  a  promise  to  observe  the 
pro|)rietics.  Cantos  vi.-xi.  were  written  at  Pisa.  Can- 
tos xii.-xvi.  at  Genoa,  in  1823.  These  latter  portions  of 
the  poem  were  published  by  John  Uunt.  His  other  works 
of  the  period  are  of  minor  consequence.  The  Af/e  of 
Bronze  is  a  declamation,  rather  than  a  satire,  directed 
against  the  Convention  of  Cintra  and  the  Congress  of 
Verona,  especially  Lord  Londonderry's  part  in  the  latter, 
only  remarkable,  from  its  advice  to  the  Greeks,  to  dread, 

"  The  false  friend  worse  than  the  infuriate  foe ;" 

i.  c,  to  prefer  the  claw  of  the  Tartar  savage  to  the  pater- 
nal hug  of  the  great  Bear — 

"  Better  still  toil  for  masters,  than  await, 
The  slave  of  slaves,  before  a  Russian  gate." 

In  the  Inland — a  talc  of  the  mutiny  of  the  "  Bounty  " — 
be  reverts  to  the  manner  and  theme  of  his  old  romances, 
finding  a  new  scene  in  the  Pacific  for  the  exercise  of  his 
fancy.  In  this  piece  his  love  of  nautical  adventure  reap- 
pears, and  his  idealization  of  primitive  life,  caught  from 
Rousseau  and  Chateaubriand.  There  is  more  repose  about 
this  poem  than  in  any  of  the  author's  other  compositions. 
In  its  pages  the  sea  seems  to  plash  about  rocks  and  caves 
that  bask  under  a  southern  sun.  "  '  Byron,  the  sorcerer,' 
he  can  do  with  me  what  he  will,"  said  old  Dr.  Parr,  on 
reading  it.     As  the  swan -song  of  the  poet's  sentimental 


rs.]  DON  JUAN.  167 

verse,  it  has  a  pleasing  if  not  pathetic  calm.  During  the 
last  years  in  Italy  he  planned  an  epic  on  the  Conquest  and 
a  play  on  the  subject  of  Hannibal,  neither  of  which  was 
executed. 

In  the  criticism  of  a  famous  work  there  is  often  little 
left  to  do  but  to  criticise  the  critics — to  bring  to  a  focus 
the  most  salient  things  that  have  been  said  about  it,  to 
eliminate  the  absurd  from  the  sensible,  the  discriminating 
from  the  commonplace.  (  Don  Juan,  more  than  any  of  its 
precursors,  is  Byron,  and  it  has  been  similarly  handled. 
The  early  cantos  were  ushered  into  the  world  amid  a 
chorus  of  mingled  applause  and  execration.  The  minor 
Reviews,  representing  middle  -  class  respectability,  were 
generally  vituperative,  and  the  higher  authorities  divided 
in  their  judgments.  The  British  Magazine  said  that 
"  his  lordship  had  degraded  his  personal  character  by  the 
composition ;"  the  London,  that  the  poem  was  "  a  satire 
on  decency;"  the  Edinburgh  Monthly,  that  it  was  "a 
melancholy  spectacle ;"  the  Eclectic,  that  it  was  "  an  out- 
rage worthy  of  detestation."  Blackwood  declared  that 
the  author  was  "  brutally  outraging  all  the  best  feelings 
of  humanity."  Moore  characterizes  it  as  "the  most  pain- 
ful display  of  the  versatility  of  genius  that  has  ever  been 
left  for  succeeding  ages  to  wonder  at  or  deplore."  Jeffrey 
found  in  the  whole  composition  "a  tendency  to  destroy 
all  belief  in  the  reality  of  virtue  ;"  and  Dr.  John  Wat- 
kins  classically  named  it  "  the  Odyssey  of  Immorality." 
''''Don  Juan  will  be  read,"  wrote  one  critic,  "as  long  as 
satire,  wit,  mirth,  and  supreme  excellence  shall  be  esteemed 
among  men."  "  Stick  to  Don  Juan,^''  exhorted  another ; 
"  it  is  the  only  sincere  thing  you  have  written,  and  it  will 
live  after  all  your  Harolds  have  ceased  to  be  'a  school- 
girl's tale,  the  wonder  of  an  hour.'     It  is  the  best  of  all 


/ 


1G8  BYRON.  [chap. 

your  works — the  most  spirited,  the  most  s^ightforwai-d, 
the  most  interesting,  the  most  poetical,"  ^'*' It  is  a  work," 
said  Goethe,  "  full  of  soul,  bitterly  savage  in  ik^  misanthro- 
pv,  ex(|ui5iitely  delicate  in  its  tenderness."/  Shelley  con- 
fessed, "It  fulfils  in  a  certain  degree  what  I  have  long 
preached,  the  task  of  producing  something  wholly  new  *nd 
n'lative  to  the  age,  and  yet  surpassingly  beautiful."  .'  And 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  the  midst  of  a  hearty  panegyric,  "It 
has  the  variety  of  Shakspeare  himself.  Neither  Childe 
Harold,  nor  the  most  beautiful  of  Byron's  earlier  tales, 
contain  more  exquisite  poetry  than  is  to  be  found  scatter- 
ed through  the  cantos  of  Don  Juan,  amid  verses  which 
the  author  seems  to  have  thrown  from  him  with  an  effort 
as  spontaneous  as  that  of  a  tree  resigning  its  leaves." 

One  noticeable  feature  about  these  comments  is  their 
sincerity :  reviewing,  however  occasionally  one-sided,  had 
not  then  sunk  to  be  the  mere  register  of  adverse  or  friend- 
ly cliques  ;  and,  with  all  his  anxiety  for  its  verdict,  Byron 
never  solicited  the  favour  of  any  portion  of  the  press. 
Another  is  the  fact  that  the  adverse  critics  missed  their 
mark.  They  had  not  learnt  to  say  of  a  book  of  which  they 
disapproved,  that  it  was  weak  or  dull :  in  pronouncing  it 
to  be  vicious,  they  helped  to  promote  its  sale ;  and  the 
most  decried  has  been  the  most  widely  read  of  the  author's 
works.  Many  of  the  readers  of  Don  Juan  liave,  it  must 
be  confessed,  been  found  among  those  least  likely  to  ad- 
mire in  it  what  is  most  admirable — who  have  been  attract- 
ed by  the  very  excesses  of  buffoonery,  violations  of  good 
taste,  and  occasionally  almost  vulgar  slang,  which  disfigure 
its  pages.  Their  patronage  is,  at  the  best,  of  no  more 
value  than  that  of  a  mob  gathered  by  a  showy  Shakspea- 
rian  revival,  and  it  has  laid  the  volume  open  to  the  charge 
of  being  adapted  "  laudari  ab  illaudatis,"     But  the  wel- 


IX.]  DON  JUAN.  169 

come  of  the  work  in  other  quarters  is  as  indubitably  due 
to  higher  qualities.  In  writing  Don  Juan,  Byron  attempt- 
ed something  that  had  never  been  done  before,  and  his 
genius  so  chimed  with  his  enterprise  that  it  need  never  be 
done  again,  "  Down,"  cries  M.  Chasles,  "  with  the  imi- 
tators who  did  their  best  to  make  his  name  ridiculous." 
In  commenting  on  their  failure,  an  excellent  critic  has  ex- 
plained the  pre-established  fitness  of  the  ottava  rima — the 
first  six  lines  of  which  are  a  dance,  and  the  concluding 
couplet  a  "breakdown" — for  the  mock-heroic.  Byron's 
choice  of  this  measure  may  have  been  suggested  by  Whis- 
tlecraft ;  but  he  had  studied  its  cadence  in  Pulci,  and  the 
Novelle  Galanti  of  Casti,  to  whom  he  is  indebted  for 
other  features  of  his  satire;  and  he  added  to  what  has 
been  well  termed  its  characteristic  jauntiness,  by  his  al- 
most constant  use  of  the  double  rhyme.  That  the  ottava 
rima  is  out  of  place  in  consistently  pathetic  poetry,  may 
be  seen  from  its  obvious  misuse  in  Keats's  Pot  of  Basil. 
Many  writers,  from  Frere  to  Moultrie,  have  employed  it 
successfully  in  burlesque  or  mere  society  verse ;  but  Byron 
alone  has  employed  it  triumphantly,  for  he  has  made  it 
the  vehicle  of  thoughts  grave  as  well  as  gay,  of  "  black 
spirits  and  white,  red  spirits  and  grey,"  of  sparkling  fancy, 
bitter  sarcasm,  and  tender  memories.  He  has  swept  into 
the  pages  of  his  poem  the  experience  of  thirty  years  of  a 
life  so  crowded  with  vitality  that  our  sense  of  the  plethora 
of  power  which  it  exhibits  makes  us  ready  to  condone  its 
lapses.  Byron,  it  has  been  said,  balances  himself  on  a 
ladder  like  other  acrobats ;  but  alone,  like  the  Japanese 
master  of  the  art,  he  all  the  while  bears  on  his  shoulders 
the  weight  of  a  man.  Much  of  Don  Juan  is  as  obnoxious 
to  criticism  in  detail  as  his  -earlier  work ;  it  has  every 
mark  of  being  written  in  hot  haste.  In  the  midst  of  the 
8* 


170  BVKoX.  [chap. 

most  serious  passages  (e.  ^7.,  the  **  Ave  Maria")  we  arc 
checked  iu  our  course  by  bathos  or  coniinoiiphice,  and 
thrown  where  the  writer  did  not  mean  to  throw  us ;  but 
the  mocking  spirit  is  so  prevailingly  present  that  we  are 
often  left  in  doubt  as  to  his  design,  and  what  is  in  Harold 
an  outrage  is  in  this  case  only  a  flaw.  Uis  command  over 
the  verse  itself  is  almost  miraculous :  he  glides  from  ex- 
treme to  extreme,  from  punning  to  pathos,  from  melan- 
choly to  mad  merriment,  sigliing  or  iaugliing  by  the  way 
at  his  readers  or  at  himself  or  at  the  stanzas.  Into  them 
he  can  fling  anything  under  the  sun,  from  a  doctor's  pre- 
scription to  a  metaphysical  theory. 

"  When  Bishop  Borkeloy  said  there  was  no  matter, 
And  proved  it,  'twas  no  matter  what  he  said," 

is  as  cogent  a  refutation  of  idealism  as  the  cumbrous  wit 
of  Scotch  logicians. 

The  popularity  of  the  work  is  due  not  mainly  to  the 
^verbal  skill  whicli  makes  it  rank  as  the  cleverest  of  English 
verse  compositions,  to  its  shoals  of  witticisms,  its  winged 
words,  telling  phrases,  and  incomparable  transitions;  but 
to  the  fact  that  it  continues  to  address  a  large  class  who 
are  not  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  wordloycrsjjf  poetry. 
Don  Juan  is  emphatically  the  poem  of  intelligent  men  of 
middle  age,  wlio  have  grown  weary  of  mere  sentiment,  and 
yet  retain  enough  of  sympathetic  feeling  to  desire  at  times 
to  recall  it.  Such  minds,  crusted  like  Plato's  Glaucus  with 
the  world,  are  yet  pervious  to  appeals  to  'the  spirit  that 
survives  beneath  the  dry  dust  amid  which  they  move;  but 
only  at  rare  intervals  can  they  accompany  the  pure  lyrist 
"  singing  as  if  he  would  never  be  old,"  and  they  are  apt 
to  turn  with  some  impatience  even  from  Romeo  and  Juliet 
to  Hamlet  and  Macbeth.     To  them,  on  the  other  hand. 


IX.]  DOX  JUAN.  Ill 

tlie  hard  wit  of  Hudibras  is  equally  tiresome,  and  more 
distasteful ;  their  chosen  friend  is  the  humourist  who,  in- 
spired by  a  subtle  perception  of  the  contradictions  of  life, 
sees  matter  for  smiles  in  sorrow,  and  tears  in  laughter. 
Byron  was  not,  in  the  highest  sense,  a  great  humourist ; 
he  does  not  blend  together  the  two  phases,  as  they  are 
blended  in  single  sentences  or  whole  chapters  of  Sterne, 
in  the  April  sunshine  of  Richter,  or  in  Sartor  Resartus ; 
but  he  comes  near  to  produce  the  same  effect  by  his  un- 
equalled power  of  alternating  them.  His  wit  is  seldom 
hard,  never  dry,  for  it  is  moistened  by  the  constant  juxta- 
position of  sentiment.  His  tenderness  is  none  the  less 
genuine  that  he  is  jDerpetually  jerking  it  away — an  equally 
favourite  fashion  with  Carlyle  —  as  if  he  could  not  trust 
himself  to  be  serious  for  fear  of  becoming  sentimental ; 
and,  in  recollection  of  his  frequent  exhibitions  of  unaffect- 
ed hysteria,  we  accept  his  own  confession — 

"  If  I  laugh  at  any  mortal  thing, 
'Tis  that  I  may  not  weep  " — 

as  a  perfectly  sincere  comment  on  the  most  sincere,  and 
therefore  in  many  respects  the  most  effective,  of  his  works. 
He  has,  after  his  way,  endeavoured  in  grave  prose  and 
light  verse  to  defend  it  against  its  assailants,  saying,  "  In 
Don  Juan  I  take  a  vicious  and  unprincipled  character,  and 
lead  him  through  those  ranks  of  society  whose  accomplish- 
ments cover  and  cloak  their  vices,  and  paint  the  natural 
effects ;"  and  elsewhere,  that  he  means  to  make  his  scamp 
"  end  as  a  member  of  the  Society  for  the  Suppression  of 
Vice,  or  by  the  guillotine,  or  in  an  unhappy  marriage." 
It  were  easy  to  dilate  on  the  fact  that  in  interpreting  the 
phrases  of  the  satirist  into  the  language  of  the  moralist 
we  often  require  to  read  them  backwards :  Byron's  own 


172  BYRON.  [chap. 

sUitoment,  "  I  bate  a   motive,"  is,  however,  more  to   the 

poiut : 

"  Ihit  the  fact  is  that  I  have  nothing  plann'd 
I'nk'HS  it  were  to  be  a  moment  merry — 
A  novel  word  iu  my  vocabulary." 

Don  Juan  can  only  be  credited  with  a  text  in  the  sense 
in  whicli  every  laiijc  experience,  of  its  own  accord,  conveys 
its  lesson.  It  w!ts  to  the  author  a  picture  of  the  world  as 
he  saw  it ;  and  it  is  to  us  a  mirror  in  which  every  attribute 
of  liis  genius,  every  peculiarity  of  his  nature,  is  reflecteiJ 
without  distortion.  After  the  audacious  though  brilliant 
opening,  and  the  unfortunately  pungent  reference  to  the 
poet's  domestic  affairs,  we  find  in  the  famous  storm  (c.  ii.) 
abewildering  epitome  of  his  prevailing  manner.  Uome- 
sioknoss,  sea-sickness,  the  terror  of  the  tempest,  "  wailing, 
blasphemy,  devotion,"  the  crash  of  the  wreck,  the  wild  fare- 
well, "  the  bubbling  cry  of  some  strong  swimmer  in  his 
agony,"  the  horrors  of  famine,  the  tale  of  the  two  fathers, 
the  beautiful  apparitions  of  the  rainbow  and  the  bird, 
the  feast  on  Juan's  spaniel,  his  reluctance  to  dine  on  "  his 
pastor  and  his  master,"  the  consequences  of  eating  Pedrillo 
— all  follow  each  other  like  visions  in  the  phantasmagoria 
of  a  nightmare,  till  at  last  the  remnant  of  the  crew  are 
drowned  by  a  ridiculous  rhyme — 

"Finding  no  place  for  their  landing  better, 
They  ran  the  boat  ashore,  and  overset  her." 

jrThen  comes  the  episode  of  Ilaidee,  "a  long  low  island 
j  song  of  ancient  days,"  the  character  of  the  girl  herself  be- 
ing like  a  thread  of  pure  gold  running  through  the  fabric 
of  its  surroundings,  motley  in  every  page ;  e.  g.,  after  the 
impassioned  close  of  the  "  Isles  of  Greece,"  we  have  the 
stanza : — 


IX.]  DON  JUAN.  173 

"  Thus  sang,  or  would,  or  could,  or  should,  have  sung, 
The  modern  Greek,  in  tolerable  verse ; 
If  not  like  Orpheus  quite,  when  Greece  was  young, 
Yet  in  those  days  he  might  have  done  much  worse — " 

with  which  the  author  dashes  away  the  romance  of  the 
song,  and  then  launches  into  a  tirade  against  Bob  South- 
ey's  epic  and  Wordsworth's  pedlar  poems,  j  This  vein  ex- 
hausted, we  come  to  the  "Ave  Maria,"  one  of  the  most 
musical,  and  seemingly  heartfelt,  hymns  in  the  language. 
The  close  of  the  ocean  pastoral  (in  c.  iv.)  is  the  last  of 
pathetic  narrative  in  the  book ;  but  the  same  feeling  that 
"  mourns  o'er  the  beauty  of  the  Cyclades "  often  re- 
emerges  in  shorter  passages.  The  fifth  and  sixth  cantos, 
in  spite  of  the  glittering  sketch  of  Gulbeyaz,  and  the 
fawn -like  image  of  Dudu,  are  open  to  the  charge  of 
diffuseness,  and  the  character  of  Johnson  is  a  failure. 
From  the  seventh  to  the  tenth,  the  poem  decidedly  dips, 
partly  because  the  writer  had  never  been  in  Russia;  then 
it  again  rises,  and  shows  no  sign  of  falling  oS  to  the 
end. 

No  part  of  the  work  has  more  suggestive  interest  or 
varied  power  than  some  of  the  later  cantos,  in  _vvhich  Juan 
is  whirled  thrqughJke  vortex  of  the  fashionable  life  which 
Byron  knew  so  well,  loved  so  much,  and  at  last  esteemed 
so  little.  There  is  no  richer  piece  of  descriptive  writing 
TnTiis  works  than  that  of  Newstead  (in  c.  xiii.);  nor  is 
there  any  analysis  of  female  character_sa.-SU.btle.  .as- that  of 
the  Lady  Adeline,. Coniectures  as  to  the  originals  of  im- 
aginary portraits  are  generally  futile ;  but  Miss  Millpond 
— not  Donna  Inez — is  obviously  Lady  Byron ;  in  Adeline 
we  may  suspect  that  at  Genoa  he  was  drawing  from  the 
life  in  the  Villa  Paradiso ;  while  Aurora  Raby  seems  to 
be  an  idealization  of  La  Guiccioli : — 


174  BYRON.  [chap. 

"  F'iirly  in  years,  and  yet  more  infantine 

la  figure,  .-lie  had  sometliinf;  of  sulillme 
In  eyes,  which  sadly  shone,  as  seraphs  shine : 

All  youth — but  vjith  an  aspeet  beyond  time ; 
Radiant  and  grave — as  pitying  man's  decline ; 

Mournful — but  mournful  of  another's  crime, 
She  look'd  as  if  she  sat  by  Eden's  door, 
And  grieved  for  those  who  could  return  no  more. 

"  She  was  a  Catholic,  too,  sincere,  austere. 

As  far  as  her  own  gentle  heart  allow'd, 
And  deem'd  that  fallen  worship  far  more  dear, 

Perhaps,  because  'twas  fallen :  her  sires  were  proud 
Of  deeds  and  days,  when  they  had  fill'd  the  ear 

Of  nations,  and  had  never  bent  or  bow'd 
To  novul  power ;  and,  as  she  was  the  last. 
She  held  her  old  faith  and  old  feelings  fast. 

"She  gazed  upon  a  world  she  scarcely  knew, 
As  seeking  not  to  know  it ;  silent,  lone, 
As  grows  a  tlower,  thus  quietly  she  grew. 
And  kept  her  heart  serene  within  its  zone." 

Constantly,  towards  the  close  of  tlio  work,  there  is  an 
echo  of  home  and  country,  a  half  involuntary  cry  after 

"The  love  of  hi<,'licr  things  and  better  days; 
Th'  unbounded  hope,  and  heavenly  ignorance 
Of  what  is  eall'd  the  world  and  the  world's  ways." 

In  the  concluding  stanza  of  the  last  completed  canto, 
beginning — 

"Between  two  worlds  life  hovers  like  a  star, 

'Twixt  night  and  morn,  on  the  horizon's  verge" — 

we  have  a  condensation  of  the  refrain  of  the  poet's  philos- 
ophy ;  but  the  main  drift  of  the  later  books  is  a  satire 
on  London  society.     There  are  elements  in  a  great  city 


IX.]  DON  JUAN.  175 

■which  may  be  wrought  into  something  nobler  than  satire, 
for  all  the  energies  of  the  age  are  concentrated  where  pas- 
sion is  fiercest  and  thought  intensest,  amid  the  myriad 
sights  and  sounds  of  its  glare  and  gloom.  But  those 
scenes,  and  the  actors  in  them,  are  apt  also  to  induce  the 
frame  of  mind  in  which  a  prose  satirist  describes  himself 
as  reclining  under  an  arcade  of  the  Pantheon:  "Not  the 
Pantheon  by  the  Piazza  Navona,  where  the  immortal  gods 
were  worshipped — the  immortal  gods  now  dead ;  but  the 
Pantheon  in  Oxford  Street.  Have  not  Selwyn,  and  Wal- 
pole,  and  March,  and  Carlisle  figured  there  ?  Has  not 
Prince  Florizel  flounced  through  the  hall  in  his  rustling 
domino,  and  danced  there  in  powdered  splendour  ?  O  my 
companions,  I  have  drunk  many  a  bout  with  you,  and  al- 
ways found  '  Yanitas  Yanitatura '  written  on  the  bottom 
of  the  pot."  This  is  the  mind  in  which  Don  Juan  inter- 
prets the  universe,  and  paints  the  still  living  court  of 
Florizel  and  his  bufEoons.  A  "  nondescript  and  ever  vary- 
ing rhyme  " — "  a  versified  aurora  borealis,"  half  cynical, 
half  Epicurean,  it  takes  a  partial,  though  a  subtle  view  of 
that  microcosm  on  stilts  called  the  great  world.  It  com- 
plains that  in  the  days  of  old  "  men  made  the  manners — 
manners  now  make  men."     It  concludes — 

"  Good  company's  a  chess-board  ;  there  are  kings, 
Queens,  bishops,  knights,  rooks,  pawns  ;  the  world's  a  game." 

It  passes  from  a  reflection  on  "the  dreary /««'mMS  of  all 
things  here  "  to  the  advice — 

"But  'carpe  diem,'  Juan,  'carpe,  carpe!' 
To-morrow  sees  another  race  as  gay 
And  transient,  and  devour'd  by  the  same  harpy. 
'  Life's  a  poor  player,' — then  play  out  the  play." 


176  BYRON.  [chap.  IX, 

It  was  tlie  natural  conclusion  of  the  foregone  stage  of 
r.v  run's  career.  Years  had  given  him  power,  but  they 
were  years  in  wliioh  liis  energies  were  largely  wasted. 
Sclf-imlulgencc  had  not  petrified  his  feeling,  but  it  had 
thrown  wormwood  into  its  si)rings.  ]le  had  learnt  to 
look  on  existence  as  a  walking  shadow,  and  was  strong 
only  with  the  strength  of  a  sincere  despair, 

"  Through  life's  road,  so  dim  and  dirty, 
I  have  dragg'd  to  three  and  thirty. 
What  have  those  years  left  to  mc  ? 
Nothing,  except  thirty -three." 

These  lines  are  the  summary  of  one  who  had  drained  the 
draught  of  pleasure  to  the  dregs  of  bitterness. 


CHAPTER  X. 

[1821-1824.] 

POLITICS. THE     CARBOXARI. EXPEDITION     TO     GREECE. 

DEATH. 

In  leaving  Venice  for  Eavenna,  Byron  passed  from  the 
society  of  gondoliers  and  successive  sultanas  to  a  com- 
paratively domestic  life,  with  a  mistress  who  at  least  en- 
deavoured to  stimulate  some  of  his  higher  aspirations,  and 
smiled  upon  his  wearing  the  sword  along  with  the  lyre. 
In  the  last  episode  of  his  constantly  chequered  and  too 
voluptuous  career,  we  have  the  waking  of  Sardanapalus 
realized  in  the  transmutation  of  the  fantastical  Harold 
into  a  practical  strategist,  financier,  and  soldier.  No  one 
ever  lived  who  in  the  same  space  more  thoroughly  ran 
the  gauntlet  of  existence.  Having  exhausted  all  other 
sources  of  vitality  and  intoxication — travel,  gallantry,  and 
verse — it  remained  for  the  despairing  poet  to  become  a 
hero'.  But  he  was  also  moved  by  a  public  passion,  the 
genuineness  of  which  there  is  no  reasonable  ground  to 
doubt.  Like  Alfieri  and  Rousseau,  he  had  taken  for  his 
motto,  "I  am  of  the  opposition;"  and,  as  Dante  under  a 
republic  called  for  a  monarchy,  Byron,  under  monarchies 
at  home  and  abroad,  called  for  a  commonwealth.  Amid 
the  inconsistencies  of  his  political  sentiment,  he  had  been 
consistent  in  so  much  love  of  liberty  as  led  him  to  de- 


178  BY  RON.  [chap. 

iiuuiice  oppression,  even  wlien  he  liad  no  great  faith  in  the 
oppressed — wlielher  English,  or  Italians,  or  Greeks. 

Byron  regarded  the  established  dynasties  of  the  con- 
tinent with  a  sincere  liatred.  He  talks  of  tiie  "  more  than 
infernal  tyranny  "  of  the  House  of  Austria.  To  his  fan- 
cy, as  to  Shelley's,  New  England  is  the  star  of  the  future. 
Attracted  by  a  strength  or  rather  force  of  cliaracter  akin 
to  his  own,  he  worshipped  Napoleon,  even  when  driven  to 
confess  that  "the  hero  had  sunk  into  a  king."  He  la- 
mented his  overthrow  ;  but,  above  all,  that  he  was  beaten 
by  "three  stui)id,  legitimate  old  dynasty  boobies  of  regular 
sovereigns,"  "  I  write  in  ipecacuanha  that  the  Bourbons 
are  restored."  "  AVliat  right  have  wc  to  prescribe  laws 
to  France  ?  Here  we  are  retrograding  to  the  dull,  stupid 
old  system,  balance  of  Europe — poising  straws  on  kings' 
noses,  instead  of  wringing  them  off."  "The  king-times 
afc  fast  finisliing.  There  will  be  blood  shed  like  water, 
and  tears  like  mist;  but  the  peoples  will  conquer  in  the 
end.  I  shall  not  live  to  see  it,  but  I  foresee  it."  "  Give 
tnc  a  republic.  Look  in  the  history  of  the  earth — Rome, 
Greece,  Venice,  Holland,  France,  America,  our  too  short 
Commonwealth — and  compare  it  with  what  they  did  under 
masters." 

His  serious  political  verses  are  all  in  the  strain  of  the 
lines  on  Wellington — 

"Never  \\:u\  mortal  man  sueh  opportunity — 
Except  Xiipoleon — or  aliused  it  more  ; 
You  migiit  have  freed  fallen  Europe  from  the  unity 
Of  tyrants,  and  been  blessed  from  shore  to  shore." 

An  enthusiasm  for  Ttaly,  which  survived  many  disappoint- 
ments, dictated  some  of  the  most  impressive  passages  of 
bis  Harold,  and   inspired  the  Lament  of  Tasso  and  the 


X.]  POLITICS.  179 

Ode  on  Venice.     The  Propliecy  of  Dante  contains  much 
that  has  since  proved  prophetic — 

"  What  is  there  wanting,  then,  to  set  thee  free, 
And  show  tliy  beauty  in  its  fullest  light  ? 
To  make  the  Alps  impassable ;  and  we, 
Her  sons,  may  do  this  with  one  deed — Unite!'''' 

His  letters  reiterate  the  same  idea,  in  language  even 
more  emphatic.  "  It  is  no  great  matter,  supposing  that 
Italy  could  be  liberated,  who  or  what  is  sacrificed.  It  is 
a  grand  object — the  very  poetry  of  politics :  only  think — 
a  free  Italy  !"  Byron  acted  on  his  assertion  that  a  man 
ought  to  do  more  for  society  than  write  verses.  Mistrust- 
ing its  leaders,  and  detesting  the  wretched  lazzaroni,  who 
"  would  have  betrayed  themselves  and  all  the  world,"  he 
yet  threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  insurrection  of 
1820,  saying,  "Whatever  I  can  do  by  money,  means,  or 
person,  I  will  venture  freely  for  their  freedom."  He 
joined  the  secret  society  of  the  Carbonari,  wrote  an  ad- 
dress to  the  Liberal  government  set  up  in  Naples,  supplied 
arms  and  a  refuge  in  his  house,  which  he  was  prepared  to 
convert  into  a  fortress.  In  February,  1821,  on  the  rout 
of  the  Neapolitans  by  the  Austrians,  the  conspiracy  was 
crushed.  Byron,  who  "  had  always  an  idea  that  it  would 
be  bungled,"  expressed  his  fear  that  the  country  would  be 
thrown  back  for  500  years  into  barbarism,  and  the  Count- 
ess Guiccioli  confessed  with  tears  that  the  Italians  must 
return  to  composing  and  strumming  operatic  airs.  Car- 
bouarism  having  collapsed,  it  of  course  made  way  for  a 
reaction ;  but  the  encouragement  and  countenance  of  the 
English  poet  and  peer  helped  to  keep  alive  the  smoulder- 
ing fire  that  Mazzini  fanned  into  a  flame,  till  Cavour  turn- 
ed it  to  a  practical  purpose,  and  the  dreams  of  the  ideal- 
ists of  1820  were  finally  realized. 


180  nVROX.  [chap. 

On  the  failure  of  the  luckless  conspiracy,  Byron  natural- 
ly betook  himself  to  history,  speculation,  satire,  and  ideas 
of  a  journalistic  propaganda ;  but  all  through  his  mind 
was  turning  to  the  renewal  of  the  action  which  was  his 
destiny.  "If  I  live  ten  years  longer,"  he  writes  in  1822, 
"  you  will  see  that  it  is  not  all  over  with  me.  I  don't 
mean  in  literature,  for  that  is  nothing — and  1  do  not  think 
it  was  my  vocation ;  but  I  shall  do  something."  The 
Greek  war  of  liberation  opened  a  new  field  for  the  exer- 
cise of  his  indomitable  energy.  This  romantic  struggle, 
begun  in  April,  1821,  was  carried  on  for  two  years  with 
such  remarkable  success,  that  at  the  close  of  1822  Greece 
was  beginning  to  be  recognized  as  an  independent  state: 
but  in  the  following  months  the  tide  seemed  to  turn ;  dis- 
sensions broke  out  among  the  leaders,  the  spirit  of  in- 
trigue seemed  to  stifle  patriotism,  and  the  energies  of  the 
insurgents  were  hampered  for  want  of  the  sinews  of  war. 
There  was  a  danger  of  the  movement  being  starved  out, 
and  the  committee  of  London  sympathizers — of  which  the 
poet's  intimate  friend  and  frequent  correspondent,  Mr. 
Douglas  Kinnaird,  and  Captain  Blaquiere,  were  leading 
promoters — was  impressed  with  the  necessity  of  procur- 
ing funds  in  support  of  the  cause.  "With  a  view  to  this 
it  seemed  of  consequence  to  attach  to  it  some  shining 
name,  and  men's  thoughts  almost  inevitably  turned  to 
]>yron.  No  other  Englishman  seemed  so  fit  to  be  asso- 
ciated with  the  enterprise  as  the  warlike  poet,  who  had 
twelve  years  before  linked  his  fame  to  that  of  "  grey  Mar- 
athon" and  "Athena's  tower,"  and,  more  recently,  immor- 
talized the  isles  on  which  he  cast  so  many  a  longing 
glance,  llobhouse  broke  the  subject  to  him  early  in  the 
spring  of  1823  :  the  committee  opened  communications  in 
April.     After  hesitating  tln'ough  May,  in  June  Byron  con- 


X.]  GREECE.  181 

sented  to  meet  Blaquiere  at  Zante,  and,  on  hearing  the 
results  of  the  captain's  expedition  to  the  Morea,  to  decide 
on  future  steps.  His  share  in  this  enterprise  has  been 
assigned  to  purely  personal  and  comparatively  mean  mo- 
tives. He  was,  it  is  said,  disgusted  with  his  periodical 
sick  of  his  editor,  tired  of  his  mistress,  and  bent  on  any 
change,  from  China  to  Peru,  that  would  give  him  a-new 
theatre  for  display.  One  grows  weary  of  the  perpetual 
half-truths  of  inveterate  detraction.  It  is  granted  that 
Byron  was  restless,  vain,  imperious,  never  did  anything 
without  a  desire  to  shine  in  the  doing  of  it,  and  was  to  a 
great  degree  the  slave  of  circumstances.  Had  the  Liberal 
proved  a  lamp  to  the  nations,  instead  of  a  mere  "  red  flag 
flaunted  in  the  face  of  John  Bull,"  he  might  have  cast 
anchor  at  Genoa ;  but  the  whole  drift  of  his  work  and 
life  demonstrates  that  he  was  capable  on  occasion  of 
merging  himself  in  what  he  conceived  to  be  great  causes, 
especially  in  their  evil  days.  Of  the  Hunts  he  may  have 
had  enough ;  but  the  invidious  statement  about  La  Guic- 
cioli  has  no  foundation,  other  than  a  somewhat  random 
remark  of  Shelley,  and  the  fact  that  he  left  her  nothing 
in  his  will.  It  is  distinctly  ascertained  that  she  expressly 
prohibited  him  from  doing  so ;  they  continued  to  corre- 
spond to  the  last,  and  her  affectionate,  though  unreadable, 
reminiscences  are  sufiicient  proof  that  she  at  no  time  con- 
sidered herself  to  be  neglected,  injured,  or  aggrieved. 

Byron,  indeed,  left  Italy  in  an  unsettled  state  of  mind : 
he  spoke  of  returning  in  a  few  months,  and  as  the  period 
for  his  departure  approached,  became  more  and  more  ir- 
resolute. A  presentiment  of  his  death  seemed  to  brood 
over  a  mind  always  superstitious,  though  never  fanatical. 
Shortly  before  his  own  departure,  the  Blessingtons  were 
preparing  to  leave  Genoa  for  England.     On  the  evening 


182  I5VR0X.  [cUAP. 

of  his  farewell  call  he  began  to  speak  of  his  voyage  with 
despoinlency,  saying,  "  Here  we  are  all  now  together;  but 
when  and  wlicre  shall  we  meet  again  ?  I  have  a  sort  of 
boding  that  we  sec  each  other  for  the  last  time,  as  some- 
thing tells  me  I  shall  never  again  return  from  Greece:" 
after  which  remark  he  leant  his  liead  on  the  sofa,  and 
burst  into  one  of  his  hysterical  fits  of  tears.  The  next 
week  was  given  to  preparations  for  an  expedition,  which, 
(Mitered  on  with  mingled  motives — sentimental,  personal, 
|iublic — became  more  real  and  earnest  to  Byron  at  every 
^tep  he  took,  lie  knew  all  the  vices  of  the  "  hereditary 
bondsmen"  among  whom  he  was  going,  and  went  among 
tliiiu  with  yet  unqnenched  aspirations,  but  with  the  bridle 
of  discipline  in  his  liand,  resolved  to  pave  the  way  to- 
wards the  nation  becoming  better,  by  devoting  himself  to 
making  it  free. 

On  the  morning  of  July  14  (1823)  he  embarked  in  tlie 
brig  "  Hercules,"  with  Trclawny ;  Count  Pictro  Gamba,  who 
remained  with  him  to  the  last ;  Bruno,  a  young  Italian  doc- 
tor;  Scott,  the  captain  of  the  vessel,  and  eight  servants,  in- 
cluding Fletcher;  besides  the  crew.  They  had  on  board 
two  guns,  with  other  arms  and  ammunition,  five  horses, 
an  ample  supjjly  of  medicines,  with  50,000  Spanish  dollars 
in  coin  and  bills.  The  start  was  inauspicious.  A  violent 
squall  drove  them  back  to  port,  and  in  the  course  of  a  last 
ride  with  Gamba  to  Albaro,  Byron  asked,  "  AVhere  shall 
we  be  in  a  year?"  On  the  same  day  of  the  same  month 
of  1824  lie  was  carried  to  the  tomb  of  his  ancestors. 
They  again  set  sail  on  the  following  evening,  and  in  five 
days  reached  Leghorn,  where  the  poet  received  a  saluta- 
tion in  verse,  addressed  to  him  by  Goethe,  and  rei)licd  to 
it.  Here  Mr.  Hamilton  Brown,  a  Scotch  gentleman  with 
considerable  knowledge  of  Greek  affairs,  joined  the  party, 


X.]  GREECE.  183 

and  induced  them  to  change  tlieir  course  to  Ceplialonia, 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  advice  and  assistance  of 
the  English  resident,  Colonel  Napier.  The  poet  occupied 
himself  during  the  voyage  mainly  in  reading — among  oth- 
er boots,  Scott's  Life  of  Swift,  Grimm's  Correspondence, 
La  Rochefoucauld,  and  Las  Casas — and  watching  the  clas- 
sic or  historic  shores  which  they  skirted,  especially  noting 
Elba,  Soracte,  the  Straits  of  Messina,  and  Etna.  In  pass- 
ing Stromboli  he  said  to  Trelawny,  "  You  will  see  this 
scene  in  a  fifth  canto  of  Childe  Harold^  On  his  com- 
panions suggesting  that  he  should  write  some  verses  on 
the  spot,  he  tried  to  do  so,  but  threw  them  away,  with  the 
remark,  "  I  cannot  write  poetry  at  will,  as  you  smoke  to- 
bacco." Trelawny  confesses  that  he  was  never  on  ship- 
board with  a  better  companion,  and  that  a  severer  test  of 
good-fellowship  it  is  impossible  to  apply.  Together  they 
shot  at  gnlls  or  empty  bottles,  and  swam  every  morning  in 
the  sea.  Early  in  August  they  reached  their  destination. 
Coming  in  sight  of  the  Morea,  the  poet  said  to  Trelawny, 
"  I  feel  as  if  the  eleven  long  years  of  bitterness  I  have 
passed  through  since  I  was  here  were  taken  from  my 
shoulders,  and  I  was  scudding  through  the  Greek  Archi- 
pelago with  old  Bathurst  in  his  frigate."  Byron  I'emained 
at  or  about  Cephalonia  till  the  close  of  the  year.  Not 
long  after  his  arrival  he  made  an  excursion  to  Ithaca,  and, 
visiting  the  monastery  at  Vathi,  was  received  by  the  abbot 
with  great  ceremony,  which,  in  a  fit  of  irritation,  brought 
on  by  a  tiresome  ride  on  a  mule,  he  returned  with  unusual 
discourtesy ;  but  next  morning,  on  his  giving  a  donation 
to  their  alms-box,  he  was  dismissed  with  the  blessing  of  the 
monks.  "  If  this  isle  were  mine,"  he  declared  on  his  way 
back,  "  I  would  break  my  staff  and  bury  my  book."  A 
little  later,  Brown  and  Trelawny  being  sent  off  with  letters 


184  BYRON.  [chap. 

to  the  provisional  government,  the  former  returned  with 
some  Greek  emissaries  to  London  to  negotiate  a  loan ;  the 
latter  attached  himself  to  Odysseus,  the  chief  of  the  repub- 
lican party  at  Athens,  and  never  again  saw  Byron  alive. 
The  poet,  after  spending  a  month  on  board  the  "  Hercu- 
les," dismissed  the  vessel,  and  hired  a  house  for  Gamba 
and  himself  at  Mctaxata,  a  healthy  village  about  four  miles 
from  the  capital  of  the  island.  Meanwhile,  Blaquierc,  neg- 
lecting his  appointment  at  Zantc,  had  gone  to  Corfu,  and 
tlicnce  to  England.  Colonel  Napier  being  absent  from 
Ccplialonia,  Byron  had  some  pleasant  social  intercourse 
with  his  deputy,  but,  unable  to  get  from  him  any  authori- 
tative information,  was  left  without  advice,  to  be  besieged 
by  letters  and  messages  from  the  factions.  Among  these 
there  were  brought  to  him  hints  that  the  Greeks  wanted  a 
king,  and  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  If  they  make  me 
the  offer,  I  will  perhaps  not  reject  it." 

The  position  would  doubtless  have  been  acceptable  to  a 
man  who  never — amid  his  many  self-deceptions — affected 
to  deny  that  he  was  ambitious ;  and  who  can  say  what 
might  not  have  resulted  for  Greece,  had  the  poet  lived  to 
add  lustre  to  her  crown  ?  In  the  meantime,  while  faring 
more  frugally  than  a  day-labourer,  he  yet  surrounded  him- 
self with  a  show  of  royal  state,  had  his  servants  armed 
with  gilt  helmets,  and  gathered  around  him  a  body-guard 
of  Suliotes.  These  wild  mercenaries  becoming  turbulent, 
he  was  obliged  to  despatch  them  to  Mesolonghi,  then 
threatened  with  siege  by  the  Turks  and  anxiously  waiting 
relief.  During  his  residence  at  Cephalonia,  Byron  was 
gratified  by  the  interest  evinced  in  him  by  the  English 
residents.  Among  these  the  physician.  Dr.  Kennedy,  a 
worthy  Scotchman,  who  imagined  himself  to  be  a  theolo- 
gian with  a  genius  for  conversion,  was  conducting  a  series 


X.]  GREECE.  185 

of  religious  meetings  at  Argostoli,  when  the  poet  expressed 
a  wish  to  be  present  at  one  of  them.  After  listening,  it 
is  said,  to  a  set  of  discourses  that  occupied  the  greater 
part  of  twelve  hours,  he  seems,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
to  have  felt  called  on  to  enter  the  lists,  and  found  himself 
involved  in  the  series  of  controversial  dialogues  afterwards 
published  in  a  substantial  book.  This  volume,  interesting 
in  several  respects,  is  one  of  the  most  charming  examples 
of  unconscious  irony  in  the  language,  and  it  is  matter  of 
regret  that  our  space  does  not  admit  of  the  abridgment 
of  several  of  its  pages.  They  bear  testimony,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  Byron's  capability  of  patience,  and  frequent 
sweetness  of  temper  under  trial ;  on  the  other,  to  Kenne- 
dy's utter  want  of  humour,  and  to  his  courageous  honesty. 
The  curiously  confronted  interlocutors,  in  the  course  of 
the  missionary  and  subsequent  private  meetings,  ran  over 
most  of  the  ground  debated  between  opponents  and  apol- 
ogists of  the  Calvinistic  faith,  which  Kennedy  upheld  with- 
out stint  The  Conversations  add  little  to  what  we  already 
know  of  Byron's  religious  opinions;  nor  is  it  easy  to  say 
where  he  ceases  to  be  serious  and  begins  to  banter,  or  vice 
versa.  He  evidently  wished  to  show  that  in  argument  he 
was  good  at  fence,  and  could  handle  a  theologian  as  skil- 
fully as  a  foil.  At  the  same  time  he  wished,  if  possible, 
though,  as  appears,  in  vain,  to  get  some  light  on  a  subject 
with  regard  to  which  in  his  graver  moods  he  was  often 
exercised.  On  some  points  he  is  explicit.  He  makes  an 
unequivocal  protest  against  the  doctrines  of  eternal  punish- 
ment and  infant  damnation,  saying  that  if  the  rest  of  man- 
kind were  to  be  damned,  he  "  would  rather  keep  them 
company  than  creep  into  heaven  alone."  On  questions  of 
inspiration,  and  the  deeper  problems  of  human  life,  he  is 
less  distinct,  being  naturally  inclined  to  a  speculative  ne- 
0 


186  BYRON.  [ciup. 

ccssitarianism,  and  disposed  to  admit  original  depravity; 
but  he  did  not  soo  liis  way  out  of  the  maze  tlirougli  the 
Atonement,  and  ht-hl  that  prayer  had  only  signitioance  as 
a  devotional  affection  of  the  heart.  Byron  showed  a  re- 
markahle  familianty  with  the  Scriptures,  and  with  parts 
of  Barrow,  Chiilingworth,  and  Stillingtleet ;  but  on  Ken- 
nedy's lending,  for  his  edification,  Boston's  Fourfold  State, 
he  returned  it  with  the  remark  that  it  was  too  deep  for 
him.  On  another  occasion  he  said,  "Do  you  know  I  am 
nearly  reconciled  to  St.  Paul,  for  he  says  there  is  no  differ- 
ence between  the  Jews  and  the  Greeks  ?  and  I  am  exactly 
of  the  same  opinion,  for  the  character  of  both  is  equally 
vile."  The  good  Scotchman's  religious  self-confidence  is 
throughout  free  from  intellectual  pride ;  and  his  own  con- 
fession, "  This  time  I  suspect  his  lordship  had  the  best  of 
it,"  might  perhaps  be  applied  to  the  whole  discussion. 

Critics  who  have  little  history  and  less  war  have  been 
accustomed  to  attribute  Byron's  lingering  at  Cephalonia 
to  indolence  and  indecision  ;  they  write  as  if  he  ought,  on 
landing  on  Greek  soil,  to  have  put  himself  at  the  head  of 
an  army  and  stormed  Constantinople.  Those  who  know 
more  confess  that  the  delay  was  deliberate,  and  that  it  was 
judicious.  The  Hellenic  uprising  was  animated  by  the 
spirit  of  a  "  lion  after  slumber,"  but  it  had  the  heads  of 
a  Hydra  hissing  and  tearing  at  one  anc^hcr.  The  chiefs 
who  defended  the  country  by  their  arms  compromised  her 
by  their  arguments,  and  some  of  her  best  fighters  were  lit- 
tle better  than  pirates  and  bandits,  Greece  was  a  prey  to 
factions — republican,  monarchic,  aristocratic — representing 
naval,  military,  and  territorial  interests,  and  each  beset  by 
the  adventurers  who  flock  round  every  movement,  only 
representing  their  own.  During  the  first  two  years  of 
success  they  were  held  in  embryo ;  during  the  later  years 


X.]  GREECE.  187 

of  disaster,  terminated  by  the  allies  at  Navarino,  they  were 
buried ;  daring  the  interlude  of  Byron's  residence,  when 
the  foes  were  like  hounds  in  the  leash,  waiting  for  a  re- 
newal of  the  struggle,  they  were  rampant.  Had  he  joined 
any  one  of  them  he  would  have  degraded  himself  to  the 
level  of  a  mere  condottiere,  and  helped  to  betray  the  com- 
mon cause.  Beset  by  solicitations  to  go  to  Athens,  to  the 
Morea,  to  Acarnania,  he  resolutely  held  apart,  biding  his 
time,  collecting  information,  making  himself  known  as  a 
man  of  affairs,  endeavouring  to  conciliate  rival  claimants 
for  pension  or  place,  and  carefully  watching  the  tide  of 
war.  Numerous  anecdotes  of  the  period  relate  to  acts  of 
public  or  private  benevolence,  which  endeared  him  to  the 
population  of  the  island ;  but  he  was  on  the  alert  against 
being  fleeced  or  robbed.  "The  bulk  of  the  English," 
Avrites  Colonel  Napier,  "came  expecting  to  find  the  Pelo- 
ponnesus filled  with  Plutarch's  men,  and  returned  think- 
ing the  inhabitants  of  Newgate  more  moral.  Lord  Byron 
judged  the  Greeks  fairly,  and  knew  that  allowance  must 
be  made  for  emancipated  slaves."  Among  other  incidents 
we  hear  of  his  passing  a  group,  who  were  "  shrieking  and 
howling  as  in  Ireland  "  over  some  men  buried  in  the  fall 
of  a  bank ;  he  snatched  a  spade,  began  to  dig,  and  threat- 
ened to  horsewhip  the  peasants  unless  they  followed  his 
example.  On  November  30  he  despatched  to  the  cen- 
tral government  a  remarkable  state  paper,  in  which  he 
dwells  on  the  fatal  calamity  of  a  civil  war,  and  says  that, 
unless  union  and  order  are  established,  all  hopes  of  a  loan 
— which,  being  every  day  more  urgent,  he  was  in  letters  to 
England  constantly  pressing — are  at  an  end.  "  I  desire," 
he  concluded,  "  the  wellbeing  of  Greece,  and  nothing  else. 
I  will  do  all  I  can  to  secure  it;  but  I  will  never  consent 
that  the  English  public  be  deceived  as  to  the  real  state  of 


188  BYRON.  [CUAT. 

aiTairs.  Voii  liavt;  foiiijjlit  j^lorioiisly  ;  act  honourably  to- 
wards your  fcllow-citizciis  and  the  world,  and  it  will  then 
no  niore  he  said,  as  has  been  repeated  for  two  thousand 
Years,  with  the  Koiiian  historians,  that  rhilopa'men  was 
the  la>t  of  the  Grecians." 

I'rincc  Alexander  Mavrocordatos — the  most  prominent 
of  the  practical  patriotic  leaders  —  having  been  deposed 
from  the  presidency,  was  sent  to  regulate  the  affairs  of 
^^'estern  Greece,  and  was  now  on  his  way  with  a  fleet  to 
relieve  Mcsolonghi,  in  attempting  which  the  brave  Marco 
Jiozzaris  had  previously  fallen.  In  a  letter,  opening  com- 
mutiication  with  a  man  for  whom  he  always  entertained  a 
high  esteem,  Byron  writes,  "  Colonel  Stanhope  has  arrived 
from  London,  charged  by  our  committee  to  act  in  concert 
with  me.  .  .  .  Greece  is  at  present  placed  between  three 
measures — cither  to  reconquer  her  liberty,  to  become  a  de- 
pendence of  the  sovereigns  of  Europe,  or  to  return  to  a 
Turkish  province.  She  has  the  choice  only  of  these  three 
alternatives.  Civil  war  is  but  a  road  that  leads  to  the  two 
latter." 

At  length  the  long -looked -for  fleet  arrived,  and  the 
Turkish  scjuadron,  with  the  loss  of  a  treasure-ship,  retired 
up  the  Gulf  of  Lepanto.  Mavrocordatos,  on  entering  Mes- 
olcjnghi,  lost  no  time  in  inviting  the  poet  io  join  him,  and 
placed  a  brig  at  his  disposal,  ad<ling,  "  I  need  not  tell  you 
to  what  a  pitch  your  presence  is  desired  by  everybody,  or 
what  a  prosperous  direction  it  will  give  to  all  our  affairs. 
Your  counsels  will  be  listened  to  like  oracles." 

At  the  same  date  Stanhope  writes,  "The  people  in  the 
streets  are  looking  forward  to  his  lordship's  arrival  as  they 
would  to  the  coming  of  the  Messiah."  l>yron  was  unable 
to  start  in  the  ship  sent  for  him  ;  but  in  spite  of  medical 
warnings,  a  few  days  later, /.  c,  December  28,  he  embark- 


X.]  GREECE.  189 

c(l  in  a  small  fast-sailing  sloop  called  a  mistico,  while  tlie 
ser\ants  and  baggage  were  stowed  in  another  and  larger 
vessel  under  the  charge  of  Count  Gamba.  From  Gamba's 
graphic  account  of  the  voyage  we  may  take  the  following : 
"  We  sailed  together  till  after  ten  at  night ;  the  wind  fa- 
vourable, a  clear  sky,  the  air  fresh,  but  not  sharp.  Our  sail- 
ors sang  alternately  patriotic  songs,  monotonous  indeed, 
but  to  persons  in  our  situation  extremely  touching,  and 
we  took  part  in  them.  We  were  all,  but  Lord  Byron  par- 
ticularly, in  excellent  spirits.  The  mistico  sailed  the  fast- 
est. When  the  waves  divided  us,  and  our  voices  could  no 
longer  reach  each  other,  we  made  signals  by  firing  pistols 
and  carbines.  To-morrow  we  meet  at  Mesolonghi — to- 
morrow. Thus,  full  of  confidence  and  spirits,  we  sailed 
along.     At  twelve  we  were  out  of  sight  of  each  other." 

Byron's  vessel,  separated  from  her  consort,  came  into 
the  close  proximity  of  a  Turkish  frigate,  and  had  to  take 
refuge  among  the  Scrofcs'  rocks.  Emerging  thence,  he 
attained  a  small  seaport  of  Acarnania,  called  Dragoraestri, 
whence  sallying  forth  on  the  2nd  of  January  under  the 
convoy  of  some  Greek  gunboats,  he  was  nearly  wrecked. 
On  the  4th  Byron  made,  w'hen  violently  heated,  an  impru- 
dent plunge  in  the  sea,  and  was  never  afterwards  free  from 
a  pain  in  his  bones.  On  the  5th  he  arrived  at  Mesolon- 
ghi, and  was  received  with  salvoes  of  musketry  and  music. 
Gamba  was  waiting  him.  His  vessel,  the  "  Bombarda," 
had  been  taken  by  the  Ottoman  frigate,  but  the  captain  of 
the  latter,  recognizing  the  Count  as  having  formerly  saved 
his  life  in  the  Black  Sea,  made  interest  in  his  behalf  with 
Yussuf  Pasha  at  Patras,  and  obtained  his  discharge.  In 
recompense,  the  poet  subsequently  sent  to  the  Pasha  some 
Turkish  prisoners,  with  a  letter  requesting  him  to  endeav- 
our to  mitigate  the   inhumanities   of  the  war.      Byron 


100  ■         BYRON.  [chap. 

liiMiiu^lit  t«>  tlio  rirec'lvs  at  Mesolonghi  tlie  4000/.  of  his 
personal  luan  (appliod,  in  tlic  first  place,  to  defraying  the 
expenses  of  the  fleet),  with  the  spell  of  his  name  and  pres- 
ence, lie  was  shortly  afterwards  appointed  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  intended  expedition  against  Lepanto,  and, 
with  this  view,  again  took  into  his  pay  five  hundred  Suli- 
otcs.  An  approaching  general  assembly  to  organize  the 
forces  of  the  West  had  brought  together  a  motley  crew, 
destitute,  discontented,  and  more  likely  to  wage  war  upon 
each  other  than  on  their  enemies.  Byron's  closest  associ- 
ates during  the  ensuing  months  were  the  engineer  Parry, 
an  energetic  artilleryman,  "  extremely  active,  and  of  strong 
practical  talents,"  who  had  travelled  in  America,  and  Col- 
onel Stanhope  (afterwards  Lord  Harrington),  equally  with 
liimself  devoted  to  the  emancipation  of  Greece,  but  at 
variance  about  the  means  of  achieving  it.  Stanhope,  a 
moral  enthusiast  of  the  stamp  of  Kennedy,  beset  by  the 
fallacy  of  religious  missions,  wished  to  cover  the  Morea 
with  Wesleyan  tracts,  and  liberate  the  country  by  the 
agency  of  the  press.  He  had  imported  a  converted  black- 
smith, with  a  cargo  of  Bibles,  types,  and  paper,  who  on  20/. 
a  year  undertook  to  accomplish  the  reform.  Byron,  back- 
ed by  the  good  sense  of  Mavrocordatos,  proposed  to  make 
cartridges  of  the  tracts,  and  small  shot  of  the  type ;  he 
did  not  think  that  the  turbulent  tribes  were  ripe  for  free- 
dom of  the  press,  and  had  begun  to  regard  Republicanism 
itself  as  a  matter  of  secondary  moment.  The  disputant 
allies  in  the  common  cause  occupied  each  a  flat  of  the 
same  small  house;  the  soldier  by  profession  was  bent  on 
writing  the  Turks  down,  the  poet  on  fighting  them  down, 
liolditig  that  "the  work  of  the  sword  must  precede  that 
of  the  pen,  and  that  camps  must  be  the  training-schools 
of  freedom."     Their  altercations  were  sometimes  fierce — 


X.]  GREECE.  191 

**  Despot !"  cried  Stanhope,  "  after  professing  liberal  prin- 
ciples from  boyhood,  you,  when  called  to  act,  prove  your- 
self a  Turk"  "  Radical !"  retorted  Byron,  "  if  I  had  held 
up  my  finger  I  could  have  crushed  your  press" — but  this 
did  not  prevent  the  recognition  by  each  of  them  of  the 
excellent  qualities  of  the  other. 

Ultimately  Stanhope  went  to  Athens,  and  allied  him- 
self with  Trelawny  and  Odysseus  and  the  party  of  the 
Left.  Nothing  can  be  more  statesmanlike  than  some  of 
Byron's  papers  of  this  and  the  immediately  preceding 
period,  nothing  more  admirable  than  the  spirit  which  in- 
spires them.  He  had  come  into  the  heart  of  a  revolution, 
exposed  to  the  same  perils  as  those  which  had  wrecked 
the  similar  movement  in  Italy.  Neither  trusting  too  much 
nor  distrusting  too  much,  with  a  clear  head  and  a  good 
will  he  set  about  enforcing  a  series  of  excellent  measures. 
From  first  to  last  he  was  engaged  in  denouncing  dissen- 
sion, in  advocating  unity,  in  doing  everything  that  man 
could  do  to  concentrate  and  utilize  the  disorderly  elements 
with  which  he  had  to  work.  lie  occupied  himself  in  re- 
pairing fortifications,  managing  ships,  restraining  licence, 
promoting  courtesy  between  the  foes,  and  regulating  the 
disposal  of  the  sinews  of  war. 

On  the  morning  of  the  22nd  of  January,  his  last  birth- 
day, he  came  from  his  room  to  Stanhope's,  and  said,  smil- 
ing, "You  were  complaining  that  I  never  write  any  poetry 
now,"  and  read  the  familiar  stanzas  beginning — 

"  'Tis  time  this  heart  should  be  unmoved," 

and  ending — 

"  Seek  out — less  often  sought  than  found — ; 

A  soldier's  grave,  for  thee  the  best ; 
Then  look  around,  and  choose  thy  ground, 
And  take  thy  rest." 


\ri  HYROX.  [chap. 

Hii^li  tliouiiflits,  Iiiirh  resolves;  but  tlie  brain  tliat  was  over- 
tasked, and  the  frame  that  was  outworn,  would  be  tasked 
and  worn  little  lonj^er.  The  lamp  of  a  life  that  had  burnt 
too  fiere(.ly  was  flickcrinij  to  its  elosc.  "  If  we  are  not 
taken  off  with  the  sword,"  he  writes  on  February  5,  "  we 
ire  like  to  march  off  with  an  ague  in  this  mud  basket ; 
and,  to  conclude  with  a  very  bad  pun,  better  martiallij 
than  marsh -uU I/.  The  dykes  of  Holland  when  broken 
down  arc  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  in  comparison  with  Mcso- 
K)nglii."  In  April,  when  it  was  too  late,  Stanhope  wrote 
from  Salona,  in  Phocis,  imploring  him  not  to  sacrifice 
health,  and  perhaps  life,  "  in  tliat  bog." 

Byron's  house  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  exhalations  of 
a  muddy  creek,  and  his  natural  irritability  was  increased 
by  a  more  than  usually  long  ascetic  regimen.  From  the 
(lay  of  his  arrival  in  Greece  he  discarded  animal  food,  and 
livetl  mainly  on  toast,  vegetables,  and  cheese,  olives  and 
light  wine,  at  the  rate  of  forty  paras  a  day.  In  spite  of 
his  strength  of  j)urpose,  his  temper  was  not  always  proof 
against  the  rajjaoity  and  turbulence  by  which  he  was  sur- 
rounded. About  the  middle  of  February,  when  the  artil- 
lery had  been  got  into  readiness  for  the  attack  on  Lepan- 
to  —  the  northern,  as  Patras  was  the  southern,  gate  of 
the  gulf,  still  in  the  hands  of  the  Turks — the  expedition 
was  thrown  back  by  an  unexpected  rising  of  the  Suliotes. 
These  peculiarly  froward  Greeks,  chronically  seditious  by 
nature,  were  on  this  occasion,  as  afterwards  appeared, 
stirred  up  by  emissaries  of  Colocatroni,  who,  though  as- 
suming the  position  of  the  rival  of  Mavrocordatos,  was 
simply  a  brigand  on  a  large  scale  in  the  Morea.  Exas- 
peration at  this  mutiny,  and  the  vexation  of  having  to 
abandon  a  cherished  scheme,  seem  to  have  been  the  imme- 
diately provoking  causes  of  a  violent  convulsive  fit  which. 


X.]  GREECE.  193 

on  the  evening  of  the  1 5th,  attacked  the  poet,  and  endan- 
gered his  life.  Next  day  he  was  hetter,  but  coraphiined 
of  weight  in  the  head ;  and  the  doctors  applying  leeches 
too  close  to  the  temporal  artery,  he  was  bled  till  he  fainted. 
And  now  occurred  the  last  of  those  striking  incidents  so 
frequent  in  his  life,  in  reference  to  which  we  may  quote 
the  joint  testimony  of  two  witnesses.  Colonel  Stanhope 
writes,  "  Soon  after  his  dreadful  paroxysm,  when  he  was 
lying  on  his  sick-bed,  with  his  whole  nervous  system  com- 
pletely shaken,  the  mutinous  Suliotes,  covered  with  dirt 
and  splendid  attires,  broke  into  his  apartment,  brandish- 
ing their  costly  arms  and  loudly  demanding  their  rights. 
Lord  Byron,  electrified  by  this  unexpected  act,  seemed  to 
recover  from  his  sickness ;  and  the  more  the  Suliotes 
raged  the  more  his  calm  courage  triumphed.  The  scene 
was  truly  sublime."  "  It  is  impossible,"  says  Count 
Gamba,  "  to  do  justice  to  the  coolness  and  magnanimity 
which  he  displayed  upon  every  trying  occasion.  Upon 
trifling  occasions  he  was  certainly  irritable  ;  but  the  aspect 
of  danger  calmed  hira  in  an  instant,  and  restored  him  the 
free  exercise  of  all  the  powers  of  his  noble  nature.  A 
more  undaunted  man  in  the  hour  of  peril  never  breathed." 
A  few  days  later,  the  riot  being  renewed,  the  disorderly 
crew  were,  on  payment  of  their  arrears,  finally  dismissed  ; 
but  several  of  the  English  artificers  under  Parry  left  about 
the  same  time,  in  fear  of  their  lives. 

On  the  4th,  the  last  of  the  long  list  of  Byron's  letters 
to  Moore  resents,  with  some  bitterness,  the  hasty  accept- 
ance of  a  rumour  that  he  had  been  quietly  writing  Don 
Juan  in  some  Ionian  island.  At  the  same  date  he  writes 
to  Kennedy,  "  I  am  not  unaware  of  the  precarious  state  of 
my  health.  But  it  is  proper  I  should  remain  in  Greece, 
and  it  were  better  to  die  doing  something  than  nothing." 
9* 


11)1  BYRON.  [lhap. 

\isioiis  t)f  onlistliij^  Europe  and  America  on  behalf  of  the 
establishment  of  a  new  state,  that  mii,'ht  in  course  of  time 
develi>{)e  itself  over  the  realm  of  Alexander,  floated  and 
gleamed  in  his  fancy ;  but  in  liis  practical  daily  procedure 
the  poet  took  as  his  text  the  motto  "  festina  lente,"  insist- 
ed on  solid  i>;round  under  his  feet,  and  had  no  notion  of 
sailiui^  balloons  over  the  sea.  With  this  view  lie  discour- 
ajj;L'd  Stanhope's  philanthropic  and  propagandist  paper,  the 
Tiicf/rapho,  and  disparaged  Dr.  Mayer,  its  Swiss  editor, 
saying,  "Of  all  petty  tyrants  he  is  one  of  the  pettiest, 
as  are  most  demagogues."  Byron  had  none  of  the  Scla- 
vonic leanings,  and  almost  personal  hatred  of  Ottoman 
rule,  of  some  of  our  statesmen  ;  but  he  saw  on  what  side 
lay  the  forces  and  the  hopes  of  the  future.  "  I  cannot 
calculate,"  he  said  to  Gamba,  during  one  of  their  latest 
rides  together,  "  to  what  a  height  Greece  may  rise.  Hith- 
erto it  has  been  a  subject  for  the  hymns  and  elegies  of 
fanatics  and  enthusiasts;  but  now  it  will  draw  the  atten- 
tion of  the  politician.  ...  At  [)resent  there  is  little  dif- 
ference, in  many  respects,  between  Greeks  and  Turks,  nor 
could  there  be ;  but  the  latter  must,  in  the  common  course 
of  events,  decline  in  power;  and  the  former  must  as  in- 
evitably become  better.  .  .  .  The  English  Government  de- 
ceived itself  at  first  in  thinking  it  possible  to  maintain 
the  Turkish  Empire  in  its  integrity  ;  but  it  cannot  be 
done — that  uuwicldy  mass  is  already  putrified,  and  must 
dissolve.  If  anything  like  an  equilibrium  is  to  be  up- 
held, Greece  must  be  supported."  These  words  have  been 
well  characterized  as  prophetic.  During  this  time  Byron 
rallied  in  health,  and  displayed  much  of  his  old  spirit,  vi- 
vacity, and  humour,  took  part  in  such  of  his  favourite 
amusements  as  circumstances  admitted,  fencing,  shooting, 
rilling,  and  playing  with  his  pet  dog  Lion.     The  last  of 


X.]  GREECE.  195 

his  recorded  practical  jokes  is  his  rolling  about  cannon- 
balls,  and  shaking  the  rafters,  to  frighten  Parry  in  the 
room  below  with  the  dread  of  an  earthquake. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  month,  after  being  solicited 
to  accompany  Mavrocordatos  to  share  the  governorship 
of  the  Morea,  he  made  an  appointment  to  meet  Colonel 
Stanhope  and  Odvsseus  at  Salona,  but  was  prevented  from 
keeping  it  by  violent  floods  which  blocked  up  the  com- 
munication. On  the  30th  he  was  presented  with  the  free- 
dom of  the  city  ofrMesolonghi.  On  the  3rd  of  April  he 
intervened  to  prevent  an  Italian  private,  guilty  of  theft, 
from  being  flogged  by  order  of  some  German  ofiicers. 
On  the  9th,  exhilarated  by  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Leigh  with 
good  accounts  of  her  own  and  Ada's  health,  he  took  a 
long  ride  with  Gamba  and  a  few  of  the  remaining  Suli- 
otes,  and  after  being  violently  heated,  and  then  drenched 
in  a  heavy  shower,  persisted  in  returning  home  in  a  boat, 
remarking  with  a  laugh,  in  answer  to  a  remonstrance,  "I 
should  make  a  pretty  soldier  if  I  were  to  care  for  such  a 
trifle."  It  soon  became  apparent  that  he  had  caught  his 
death.  Almost  immediately  on  his  return  he  was  seized 
with  shiverings  and  violent  pain.  The  next  day  he  rose 
as  usual,  and  had  his  last  ride  in  the  olive  woods.  On 
tbe  11th  a  rheumatic  fever  set  in.  On  the  14th,  Bruno's 
skill  being  exhausted,  it  was  proposed  to  call  Dr.  Thomas 
from  Zante,  but  a  hurricane  prevented  any  ship  being 
sent.  On  the  15th,  another  physician,  Mr.  Milligen,  sug- 
gested bleeding  to  allay  the  fever,  but  Byron  held  out 
against  it,  quoting  Dr.  Reid  to  the  effect  that  "  less  slaugh- 
ter is  effected  by  the  lance  than  the  lancet — that  minute 
instrument  of  mighty  mischief ;"  and  saying  to  Bruno, 
"  If  my  hour  is  come  I  shall  die,  whether  I  lose  my  blood 
or   keep   it."     Next   morning   Milligen  induced   him   to 


l'.»6  HYRON.  [chap. 

yield,  by  a  suggestion  of  the  possible  loss  of  his  reason. 
Throwing  out  his  arm,  lie  cried,  "  There  !  you  are,  I  see,  a 
d — d  sot  of  butchers.  Take  away  as  nuich  blood  as  you 
like,  and  have  done  with  it."  The  remedy,  repeated  on 
the  following  day  with  blistering,  was  either  too  late  or 
ill-advised.  On  the  18th  he  saw  more  doctors,  but  was 
manifestly  sinking,  amid  the  tears  and  lamentations  of  at- 
tendants who  could  not  understand  each  other's  language. 
In  his  last  hours  his  delirium  bore  him  to  the  field  of 
arms,  lie  fancied  he  was  leading  the  attack  on  Lepanto, 
and  was  heard  exclaiming,  "  Forwards  !  forwards !  follow 
me  I"  AVho  is  not  reminded  of  another  death -bed,  not 
remote  in  time  from  his, and  the  THe  iVarmee  of  the  great 
Emperor  who  with  the  great  Poet  divided  the  wonder 
of  Europe?  The  stormy  vision  passed,  and  his  thoughts 
reverted  home.  "  Go  to  my  sister,"  he  faltered  out  to 
Fletcher;  "tell  her  —  go  to  Lady  Byron  —  you  will  see 
her,  and  say  " — nothing  more  could  be  heard  but  broken 
ejaculations:  "Augusta — Ada — my  sister,  my  child.  lo 
lascio  (pialche  cosa  di  caro  nel  mondo.  For  the  rest,  I  am 
content  to  die."  At  six  on  the  evening  of  the  18th  he 
uttered  his  last  words,  "Aa  ^/e  rvv  KaBthtiir  \^''  and  on  the 
19th  he  passed  away. 

Never,  perhaps,  was  there  such  a  national  lamentation. 
By  order  of  Mavrocordatos,  thirty-seven  guns  —  one  for 
eacli  year  of  the  poet's  life — were  fired  from  the  battery, 
and  answered  by  the  Turks  from  Patras  with  an  exultant 
volley.  All  ofiices,  tribunals,  and  shops  were  shut,  and  a 
general  mourning  for  twenty-one  days  proclaimed.  Stan- 
hope wrote,  on  hearing  the  news,  "  England  has  lost  her 
brightest  genius  —  Greece  her  noblest  friend;"  and  Tre- 
lawny,  on  coming  to  Mesolonghi,  heard  nothing  in  tho 
streets  but  "  Byron   is  dead  !"  like  a  boll  tolling  through 


X.]  ILLNESS  AND  DEATH.  197 

the  sik'uce  and  the  gloom.  Intending  contributors  to  the 
cause  of  Greece  turned  back  when  they  heard  the  tidings, 
that  seemed  to  them  to  mean  she  was  headless.  Her  cities 
contended  for  the  body,  as  of  old  for  the  birth  of  a  poet. 
Athens  wished  him  to  rest  in  the  Temple  of  Theseus. 
The  funeral  service  was  performed  at  Mesolonghi.  But  on 
the  2nd  of  May  the  embalmed  remains  left  Zante,  and  on 
the  29th  arrived  in  the  Downs.  His  relatives  applied  for 
permission  to  have  them  interred  in  AYestminster  Abbey, 
but  it  was  refused;  and  on  the  16th  July  they  were  con- 
veyed to  the  village  church  of  Hucknall. 


CHAPTER  XL 

CHARACTERISTICS,  AND    PLACE    IN    LITERATURE. 

Lord  Jeffrey  at  the  close  of  a  once -famous  review 
quaintly  laments :  "  The  tuneful  quartos  of  Southey  aro 
already  little  better  than  lumber,  and  the  rich  melodies 
of  Keats  and  Shelley,  and  the  fantastical  emphasis  of 
Wordsworth,  and  the  plebeian  pathos  of  Crabbe,  arc  melt- 
ing fast  from  the  field  of  our  vision,  Tlie  novels  of  Scott 
have  put  out  his  poetry,  and  the  blazing  star  of  Byron 
himself  is  receding  from  its  place  of  pride."  Of  the 
poets  of  the  early  part  of  this  century  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell thought  Byron  the  greatest ;  then  Scott ;  then  Moore. 
"Such  an  opinion,"  wrote  a  N'ational  reviewer,  in  1860, 
"  is  not  worth  a  refutation  ;  we  only  smile  at  it."  Noth- 
ing in  the  history  of  literature  is  more  curious  than  the 
shifting  of  the  standard  of  excellence,  which  so  perplexes 
criticism.  But  the  most  remarkable  feature  of  the  matter 
is  the  frequent  return  to  power  of  the  once  discarded  po- 
tentates. Byron  is  resuming  his  place :  his  spirit  has 
come  again  to  our  atmosphere  ;  and  every  budding  critic, 
as  in  1820,  feels  called  on  to  pronounce  a  verdict  on  his 
genius  and  character.  The  present  times  are,  in  many  re- 
spects, an  aftermath  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  century 
which  was  an  era  of  revolt,  of  doubt,  of  storm.  There 
succeeded  an  era  of  exhaustion,  of  quiescence,  of  reflection. 
The  first  years  of  the  third  quarter  saw  a  revival  of  turbu- 


CHAP.  XI.]    CHARACTERISTICS— PLACE  IN  LITERATURE.    190 

lence  and  agitation  ;  and,  more  tlian  our  fathers,  we  are 
inclined  to  sj^mpathize  with  our  grandfathers.  Macaulay 
has  popularized  the  story  of  the  change  of  literary  dy- 
nasty which  in  our  island  marked  the  close  of  the  last,  and 
the  first  two  decades  of  the  present,  hundred  years. 

The  corresponding  artistic  revolt  on  the  continent  was 
closely  connected  with  changes  in  the  political  world. 
The  originators  of  the  romantic  literature  in  Italy,  for  the 
most  part,  died  in  Spielberg  or  in  exile.  The  same  revo- 
lution which  levelled  the  Bastille,  and  converted  Versailles 
and  the  Trianon — the  classic  school  in  stone  and  terrace — 
into  a  moral  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii,  drove  the  models 
of  the  so-called  Augustan  ages  into  a  museum  of  antiqua- 
rians. In  our  own  country,  the  movement  initiated  by 
Chatterton,  Cowper,  and  Burns  was  carried  out  by  two 
classes  of  great  writers.  They  agreed  in  opposing  free- 
dom to  formality ;  in  substituting  for  the  old  new  aims 
and  methods ;  in  preferring  a  grain  of  mother  wit  to  a  peck 
of  clerisy.  They  broke  with  the  old  school,  as  Protestant- 
ism broke  with  the  old  Church ;  but,  like  the  sects,  they 
separated  again.  Wordsworth,  Southey,  and  Coleridge, 
while  refusing  to  acknowledge  the  literary  precedents  of 
the  past,  submitted  themselves  to  a  self-imposed  law.  The 
partialities  of  their  maturity  were  towards  things  settled 
and  regulated;  their  favourite  virtues,  endurance  and  hu- 
mility; their  conformity  to  established  institutions  was 
the  basis  of  a  new  Conservatism.  The  others  were  the 
Radicals  of  the  movement :  they  practically  acknowledged 
no  law  but  their  own  inspiration.  Dissatisfied  with  the 
existing  order,  their  sympathies  were  with  strong  will  and 
passion  and  defiant  independence.  These  found  their 
master-types  in  Shelley  and  in  Byron. 

A  reaction  is  always  an   extreme.     Lollards,  Puritans, 


200  BYROX.  [chap. 

Covenanters  were  in  some  respects  nauseous  antidotes  to 
ceelosiastical  corruption.  Tlic  ruins  of  the  »Scotch  cathe- 
drals and  of  the  Frcncli  nobility  arc  warnings  at  once 
against  the  excess  that  provokes  and  the  excess  that 
aven'^cs.  Tiie  revolt  against  the  ancien  rcr/ime  in  letters 
made  possible  the  Ode  that  is  the  high -tide  mark  of 
modern  English  inspiration,  but  it  was  parodied  in  page 
on  page  of  maundering  rusticity.  Byron  saw  the  danger, 
but  was  borne  headlong  by  the  rapids.  Hence  the  anom- 
alous contrast  between  his  theories  and  his  performance. 
Both  Wordsworth  and  Byron  were  bitten  by  Rousseau  ; 
but  the  former  is,  at  furthest,  a  Girondin.  The  latter,  act- 
ing like  Danton  on  the  motto  "  L'audace,  I'audace,  toiujours 
raudace,"  sighs  after  Jlcnri  Qiiatre  et  GahricUei^  lThere_- 
is  more  of  the  spirit  of  the  French  Revolution  in  Don 
Juan  than  in  all  the  works  of  the  author's  conteu)poruti«&-r 
but  his  criticism  is  that  of  Boilcau,  and  wlren  deliberate 
isgcncr3]Jji._ab8urdUNJIIe  never  recognized  the  meaning 
of  the  artistic  movement  of  his  age,  and  overvalued  those 
of  his  works  which  the  Unities  helped  to  destroy.  lie 
hailed  Gifford  as  his  Magnus  Apollo,  and  put  Rogers  next 
to  Scott  in  his  comical  pyramid.  "  Chaucer, "^  he  writes, 
"I  think  obscene  and  contemptible.^'  He  could  see  no 
merit  in  Spenser,  preferred  Tasso  to  Milton,  and  called  the 
old  English  dramatists  "mad  and  turbid  mountebanks." 
In  the  same  spirit  he  writes:  "In  the  time  of  Pope  it 
was  all  Horace ;  now  it  is  all  Claudian."  He  saw — what 
fanatics  had  begun  to  deny — that  Pope  was  a  great  writer, 
and  the  *'  angel  of  reasonableness,"  the  strong  common 
sense  of  both,  was  a  link  between  them ;  but  the  expres- 
sions he  uses  during  his  controversy  with  Bowles  look 
like  jests,  till  we  are  convinced  of  liis  earnestness  by  hia 
anger.     "  Neither  time,  nor  distance,  nor  grief,  nor  age  can 


xi.j         CHARACTERISTICS— PLACE  IX  LITERATURE.        201 

ever  diminish   ni}"   veneration  for  liim  -nlio  is  the  great 
moral  poet  of  all  times,  of  all  climes,  of  all  feelings,  and 
of  all  stages  of  existence.  .  .  .  Your  whole  generation  are 
not  worth  a  canto  of  the  Dunciad,  or  anything  that  is 
his."     All   the   while   he   was  himself  writing   prose  and 
verse,  in  grasp,  if  not  in  vigour  as  far  beyond  the  stretch 
of  Pope,  as  Pope  is   in  "  worth   and   wit   and   sense "  re- 
moved above  his  mimics.     The  point  of  the   paradox  is 
not  merely  that  he  deserted,  but  that  he  sometimes  imi- 
tated his  model,  and  when  he  did  so,  failed.     Macaulay's 
judgment,  that  "personal  taste  led  him  to  the  eighteenth 
century,  thirst  for  praise  to  the   nineteenth,"  is  quite  at 
fault.     There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Byron  loved  praise  as  ^ 
much  as  he  affected  to  despise  it.     His  note,  on  reading    j/ 
the  Quarterly  on  his  dramas,  "  I  am  the  most  unpopular    I 
man  in  England,"  is  like  the  cry  of  a  child  under  chastise-     1 
ment ;  but  he  had  little  affinity,  moral  or  artistic,  with  the    / 
spirit  of  our  so-called  Angustans,  and  his  determination  to 
admire  them  was  itself  rebellious.     Again  we  are  remind- 
ed of  his  phrase,  "  I  am  of  the  opposition."     His  vanitj 
and  pride  were  perpetually  struggling  for  the  mastery,  and 
though  he  thirsted  for  popularity  he  was  bent  on  com; 
pelling  it;    so  he    warred  with  the    literary    impulse    of 
which  be  was  the  child. 

Byron  has  no  relation  to  the  master-minds  whose  works 
reflect  a  nation  or  an  era,  and  who  keep  their  own  secrets. 
His  verse  and  prose  is  alike  biographical,  and  the  inequali- 
ties of  his  style  are  those  of  his  career.  He  lived  in  a 
glass  case,  and  could  not  hide  himself  by  his  habit  of 
burning  blue  lights.  He  was  too  great  to  do  violence  to 
his  nature,  which  was  not  great  enough  to  be  really  con- 
sistent. It  was  thus  natural  for  him  to  pose  as  the  spokes- 
man of  two  ages — as  a  critic  and  as  an  author ;  and  of 


202  BYRON.  [cuai-. 

two  orders  of  society — as  a  poor,  ami  as  a  poet  of  revolt. 
Sincere  in  both,  he  could  never  forget  the  one  character  in 
the  other.  To  the  last  he  was  an  aristocrat  in  sentiment, 
a  democrat  in  opinion.  "  Vulgarity,"  ho  writes,  with  a 
pithy  half-truth,  "is  far  worse  than  downright  black- 
guardism ;  for  the  latter  comprehends  wit,  humour,  and 
strong  sense  at  times,  while  the  former  is  a  sad  abortive 
attempt  at  all  things,  signifying  nothing."  He  could  nev- 
er reconcile  himself  to  the  English  radicals ;  and  it  has 
been  acutely  remarked  that  part  of  his  final  interest  in 
Greece  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  found  it  a  country  of  chissic 
memories,  "  where  a  man  might  be  the  champion  of  lib- 
erty without  soiling  himself  in  the  arena."  lie  owed 
much  of  his  early  influence  to  the  fact  of  his  moving  in 
the  circles  of  rank  and  fashion  ;  but  though  himself  steep- 
ed in  the  prejudices  of  caste,  he  struck  at  them  at  times 
with  fatal  force.  Aristocracy  is  the  individual  asserting 
a  vital  distinctit^i  between  itself  and  "the  muck  o'  the 
world."  Byron's  heroes  all  rebel  against  the  associative 
tendency  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  they  arc  sclf-worship- 
pers  at  war  with  society ;  but  most  of  them  come  to  bad 
ends.  lie  maligned  himself  in  those  caricatures,  and  has 
given  more  of  himself  in  describing  one  whom  with  special 
significance  we  call  a  brother  poet.  "  Allen,"  he  writes  in 
1813,  "has  lent  me  a  quantity  of  Burns's  unpublished  let- 
ters. .  .  .  What  an  antithetical  mind ! — tenderness,  rough- 
ness—  delicacy,  coarseness — sentiment,  sensuality  —  soar- 
ing and  grovelling — dirt  and  deity — all  mixed  up  in  that 
one  compound  of  inspired  clay !"  We  have  only  to  add 
to  these  antitheses,  in  applying  them  with  slight  modifi- 
cation to  the  writer.  Byron  had,  on  occasion,  more  self- 
control  than  Burns,  who  yielded  to  every  thirst  or  gust, 
and  could  never  have  lived  the  life  of  the  soldier  at  Meso- 


SI.]         CHARACTERISTICS— PLACE  IX  LITERATURE.        203 

longlu ;  but,  partly  owing  to  meanness,  partly  to  a  sound 
instinct,  his  menaory  has  been  more  severely  dealt  with. 
The  fact  of  his  being  a  nobleman  helped  to  make  him 
famous,  but  it  also  helped  to  make  him  hated.  No  doubt 
it  half  spoiled  him  in  making  him  a  show ;  and  the  cir- 
cumstance has  suggested  the  remark  of  a  humourist,  that 
it  is  as  hard  for  a  lord  to  be  a  perfect  gentleman  as  for 
a  camel  to  pass  through  the  needle's  eye.  But  it  also  ex- 
posed to  the  rancours  of  jealousy  a  man  who  had  nearly 
everything  but  domestic  happiness  to  excite  that  most  cor- 
roding of  literary  passions ;  and  when  he  got  out  of  gear 
he  became  the  quarry  of  Spenser's  "blatant  beast."  On 
the  other  hand.  Burns  was,  beneath  his  disgust  at  Holy 
Fairs  and  Willies,  sincerely  reverential ;  much  of  Don 
Juan  would  have  seemed  to  him  "  an  atheist's  laugh,"  and 
— a  more  certain  superiority — he  was  absolutely  frank. 

Byron,  like  Pope,  was  given  to  playing  monkey  -  like 
tricks,  mostly   harmless,  but   offensive  to   their   victims. 
His  peace  of  mind  was  dependent  on  what  people  would 
say  of  him,  to  a  degree  unusual  even  in  the  irritable  race ; 
and  when  they  spoke  ill  he  was,  again  like  Pope,  esse 
tially  vindictive.     The  Bards  and  Reviewers  beats  about, 
where  the  lines  to  Atticus  transfix  with  Philoctetes'  ar- 
rows; but  they  are  due  to  alike  impulse.     Byron  affecrecT 
to  contemn  the  world ;  but,  say  what  he  would,  he  cared  I 
too  much  for  it.     He  had  a  genuine  love  of  solitude  as  §jis 
alterative ;  but  he  could  not  subsist  without  society,  and, 
Shelley  tells  us,  wherever  he  went,  became  the  nucleus  of 
it.     He  sprang  up  again  when  flung  to  the  earth,  but  he 
never  attained  to  the  disdain  he  desired. 

We  find  him  at  once  munificent  and  careful  about  mon- 
ey ;  calmly  asleep  amid  a  crowd  of  trembling  sailors,  yet 
never  going  to  ride  without  a  nervous  caution ;  defyinjir 


H 


204  r.VHON'.  [ciup. 

LTiny,  yt't  seriously  distnrbi.'d  l>y  a  gipsy's  prattle.     He 
(joiiUl  III'  the  most  genial  of  comrades,  the  most  considerate 
f  masters,  and  he  secured  the  devotion  of  his  servants,  as 
)f  his  friends;  hut  he  was  too  overbearing  to  form  mat)y 
jual  frieinlships,  and  apt  to  be  ungenerous  to  his  real  ri- 
als.    His  shifting  attitude  towards  Lady  Byron,  his  wav- 
ering purposes,  his  impulsive  acts,  are  a  part  of  the  char- 
acter we  trace  through  all   his  life  and  work  —  a  strange 
mixture  of  magnanimity   and   brutality,  "of  laughter   and 
tears,  consistent  in  nothing  but  his  passion  and  his  pride, 
yet  redeeming  all  his  defects  by  his  graces,  and  wearing  a 
greatness  that  his  errors  can  only  half  obscure. 

Alternately  the  idol  and  the  horror  of  his  contem- 
])oraries,  Byron  was,  during  his  life,  feared  and  respected 
as  "the  grand  Napoleon  of  the  realms  of  rhyme."  His 
works  were  the  events  of  the  literary  world.  The  chief 
among  them  were  translated  into  French,  Gorman,  Italian, 
Danish,  Polish,  Russian,  Spanish.  On  the  publication  of 
Moore's  Life,  Lord  Macaulay  had  no  hesitation  in  refer- 
ring to  Byron  as  "the  most  celebrated  Englishman  of  the 
nineteenth  century."  Nor  have  we  now  ;  but  in  the  in- 
terval between  1840-1 8*70  it  was  the  fashion  to  talk  of 
him  as  a  sentimentalist,  a  romancer,  a  shallow  wit,  a  nine 
days'  wonder,  a  poet  for  "  green  unknowing  youth."  It 
was  a  reaction  such  as  leads  us  to  disestablish  the  heroes 
of  our  crude  imaginations  till  we  learn  that  to  admire 
nothing  is  as  sure  a  sign  of  immaturity  as  to  admire 
everything. 

The  weariness,  if  not  disgust,  induced  by  a  throng  of 
uKjre  than  usually  absurd  imitators,  enabled  Mr.  Carl  vie, 
the  po(!t's  successor  in  literary  influence,  more  effectively 
to  lead  the  counter -revolt.  "In  my  mind,"  writes  this 
c,  in  18r?n,  "  Byron  has  been  sinking  at  an  accelerated 


XI.]        CHARACTERISTICS— PLACE  IN  LITERATURE.        205 

rate  for  the  last  ten  years,  and  has  now  reached  a  very  low 
level.  .  .  .  His  fame  has  been  very  great,  but  I  do  not  sec 
how  it  is  to  endure ;  neither  does  that  make  him  great. 
No  genuine  productive  thought  was  ever  revealed  by  him 
to  mankind.  He  taught  me  nothing  that  I  had  not  again 
to  forget."  The  refrain  of  Carlyle's  advice  during  the 
most  active  years  of  his  criticism  was,  "  Close  thy  Byron, 
open  thy  Goethe."  We  do  so,  and  find  that  the  refrain  of 
Goetlie's  advice  in  reference  to  Byron  is  — "  Nocturna 
versate  manu,  versate  diurna."  He  urged  Eckermann  to 
study  English  that  lie  might  read  him ;  remarking,  "  A 
character  of  such  eminence  has  never  existed  before,  and 
probably  will  never  come  again.  The  beauty  of  Cain  is 
such  as  we  shall  not  see  a  second  time  in  the  world.  .  ,  . 
Byron  issues  from  the  sea-waves  ever  fresh.  I  did  riglit 
to  present  him  with  that  monument  of  love  in  Helena.  I 
could  not  make  use  of  any  man  as  the  representative  of 
tbe  modern  poetic  era  except  him,  who  is  undoubtedly  to 
be  regarded  as  the  greatest  genius  of  our  century."  Again  : 
"Tasso's  epic  has  maintained  its  fame,  but  Byron  is  the 
burning  bush  which  reduces  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  to 
ashes.  .  .  .  The  Englisli  may  think  of  him  as  they  please ; 
this  is  certain,  they  can  show  no  (living)  poet  who  is  to  be 
compared  to  him.  .  .  .  But  he  is  too  worldly.  Contrast 
Macbeth  and  Beppo,  where  you  are  in  a  nefarious  em- 
pirical world.  On  Eckermann's  doubting  "  whether  there 
is  a  gain  for  pure  culture  in  Byron's  work,"  Goethe  con- 
clusively replies,  "  There  I  must  contradict  you.  The  au- 
dacity and  grandeur  of  Byron  must  certainly  tend  towards 
culture.  We  should  take  care  not  to  be  always  looking 
for  it  in  the  decidedly  pure  and  moral.  Everything  that  is 
great  promotes  cultivation,  as  soon  as  we  are  aware  of  it." 
This  verdict  of  the  Olympian  as  against  the  verdict  of 


206  nVROX.  [chap. 

tlic  Titan  is  interesting  in  itsi-lf,  ami  as  being  the  verdict 
of  the  whole  continental  world  of  letters,  "  What,"  ex- 
claims Castelar,  " docs  Spain  not  owe  to  Byron?  From 
Lis  mouth  come  our  hopes  and  fears,  lie  has  baptized  us 
with  his  blood.  There  is  no  one  with  whose  being  some 
song  of  his  is  not  woven.  His  life  is  like  a  funeral  torch 
over  our  graves."  Mazzini  takes  up  the  same  tune  for 
Italy.  Stendhal  speaks  of  Byron's  "Apollonic  power;" 
and  Sainte  Beuve  writes  to  the  same  intent,  with  some 
judicious  caveats.  M.  Taine  concludes  his  survey  of  the 
romantic  movement  with  tlie  remark :  "  In  this  splendid 
effort,  the  greatest  are  exhausted.  One  alone  —  Byron — 
attains  the  summit.  He  is  so  great  and  so  English,  that 
from  him  alone  we  shall  learn  more  truths  of  his  coun- 
try and  his  age  than  from  all  the  rest  together."  Dr.  Eizc 
ranks  the  author  of  Harold  and  Juan  among  the  four 
greatest  English  poets,  and  claims  for  him  the  intellect- 
ual parentage  of  Lamartine  and  Musset  in  France,  of  Es- 
pronceda  in  Spain,  of  Puschkin  in  Russia,  with  some  mod- 
ifications, of  Heine  in  Germany,  of  Borchet  and  others  in 
Italy.  So  many  voices  of  so  various  countries  cannot  be 
sim{)ly  set  aside:  unless  we  wrap  ourselves  in  an  insolent 
insiilarism,  we  are  bound  at  least  to  ask  what  is  the  mean- 
ing of  tlieir  concurrent  testimony.  Foreign  judgments 
can  manifestly  have  little  weight  on  matters  of  form,  and 
not  one  of  the  above-mentioned  critics  is  sufficiently  alive 
to  the  egregious  shortcomings  which  Byron  himself  rec- 
ognized. That  he  loses  almost  nothing  by  translation  is 
a  compliment  to  the  man,  a  dis[)aragement  to  the  .-ulist. 
Scarce  a  page  of  his  verse  even  aspires  to  perfection  ;  liard- 
ly  a  stanza  will  bear  the  minute  word-by-word  dissection 
which  only  brings  into  clearer  view  the  delicate  touches 
of  Keats  or  Tennyson  ;  his  pictures  with  a  big  brush  were 


XI.]        CHARACTERISTICS— PLACE  IX  LITERATURE.         207  . 

never  meant  for  the  microscope.  Here  the  contrast  be- 
tween liis  theoretic  worship  of  his  idol  and  his  own  prac- 
tice reaches  a  climax.  If,  as  he  professed  to  believe,  "  the 
best  poet  is  he  who  best  executes  his  work,"  then  he  is 
hardly  a  poet  at  all.  He  is  habitually  rapid  and  slovenly ; 
an  improvisatore  on  the  spot  where  his  fancy  is  kindled, 
writing  currente  calamo,  and  disdaining  the  "art  to  blot." 
"  I  can  never  recast  anything.  I  am  like  the  tiger ;  if  I 
miss  the  first  spring,  I  go  grumbling  back  to  my  jungle." 
He  said  to  Medwin,  "Blank  verse  is  the  most  difficult,  be- 
cause every  line  must  be  good."  Consequently,  his  own 
blank  verse  is  always  defective  —  sometimes  execrable. 
No  one  else — except,  perhaps,  AYordsworth — who  could 
write  so  well,  could  also  write  so  ill.  This  fact  in  Byron's 
case  seems  due  not  to  mere  carelessness,  but  to  incapacity. 
•Something  seems  to  stand  behind  him,  like  the  slave  in 
the  chariot,  to  check  the  current  of  his  highest  thought. 
The  glow  of  his  fancy  fades  with  the  suddennress  of  a 
southern  sunset.  His  best  inspirations  are  spoilt  by  the 
interruption  of  incongruous  commonplace.  He  had  none 
of  the  guardian  delicacy  of  taste,  or  the  thirst  after  com- 
pleteness, which  mark  the  consummate  artist.  He  is  more 
nearly  a  dwarf  Shakspeare  than  a  giant  Pope.  This  de- 
fect was  most  mischievous  where  he  was  weakest,  in  his 
dramas  and  his  lyrics,  least  so  where  he  was  strongest,  in 
his  mature  satires.  It  is  almost  transmuted  into  an  ex- 
cellence in  the  greatest  of  these,  which  is  by  design  and 
in  detail  a  temple  of  incongruity. 

If  we  turn  from  his  manner  to  his  matter,  we  cannot 
claim  for  Byron  any  absolute  originality.  His  sources  have 
been  found  in  Rousseau,  Voltaire,  Chateaubriand,  Beau- 
marchais,  Lauzun,  Gibbon,  Bayle,  St.  Pierre,  Alfieri,  Casti, 
Cuvier,  La  Bruyere,  Wielaud,  Swift,  Sterne,  Le  Sage,  Goc- 


208  BYRON.  [chap. 

the,  scraps  of  the  classics,  and  the  Book  of  Job.  Abso- 
hitc  orij^niiaHty  in  a  late  age  is  only  possible  to  the  her- 
mit, the  lunatic,  or  the  sensation  novelist.  Byron,  like  the 
rovers  before  Minos,  was  not  ashamed  of  his  piracy.  He 
tnuisfcrred  the  random  prose  uf  his  own  letters  and 
journals  to  his  dran)as,  and  with  the  same  complacency 
made  use  of  the  notes  jotted  down  from  other  writers  as 
he  sailed  on  the  Lake  of  Geneva.  But  he  made  them 
his  own  by  re-casting  the  rough  ore  into  bell-metal.  He 
brewed  a  cauldron  like  that  of  Macbcth's  witches,  and  from 
it  arose  the  images  of  crowned  kings.  If  he  did  not  bring 
a  new  idea  into  the  world,  he  quadrupled  the  force  of 
existing  ideas  and  scattered  them  far  and  wide.  Southern 
critics  have  maintained  that  he  had  a  southern  nature,  and 
was  in  his  true  clement  on  the  Lido  or  under  an  Andalusian 
night.  Others  dwell  on  the  English  pride  that  went  along 
with  his  Italian  habits  and  Greek  sympathies.  The  truth 
is,  he  had  the  power  of  making  himself  poetically  every- 
where at  home  ;  and  this,  along  with  the  fact  of  all  his 
writings  being  perfectly  intelligible,  is  the  secret  of  his 
European  influence,  lie  was  a  citizen  of  the  world;  be- 
cause he  not  only  painted  the  environs,  but  reflected  the 
passions  and  aspirations  of  every  scene  amid  which  he 
dwelt. 

A  disparaging  critic  has  said,  "  Byron  is  nothing  with- 
out his  descriptions."  The  remark  only  em[thasizes  the 
fact  that  his  genius  was  not  dramatic.  All  non-dramatic 
art  is  concerned  with  bringing  before  us  pictures  of  the 
world,  the  value  of  which  lies  half  in  their  truth,  half  in 
the  amount  of  human  interest  with  which  they  are  invest- 
ed. To  scientific  accuracy  few  poets  can  lay  claim,  and 
Byron  less  than  most ;  but  the  general  truth  of  his  de- 
scriptions is   acknowledged  by  all  who  have  travelled  in 


XI.]         CHARACTERISTICS— PLACE  IX  LITERATURE.         209 

the  same  countries.  The  Greek  verses  of  his  first  pilgrim- 
age— e.  g.,  the  night  scene  on  the  Gulf  of  Arta,  many  of 
the  Albanian  sketches,  -with  much  of  the  Siege  of  Corinth 
and  the  Giaour — have  been  invariably  commended  for 
their  vivid  realism.  Attention  has  been  especially  direct- 
ed to  the  lines  in  the  Corsair  beginning — 

"But,  lo  !  from  high  Hymettus  to  the  plain," 

as  being  the  veritable  voice  of  one 

"Spell-bound,  within  the  clustering  Cyclades." 

The  opening  lines  of  the  same  canto,  transplanted  from 
the  Curse  of  Minerva,  are  even  more  suggestive  : — 

"  Slow  sinks,  more  lovely  ere  his  race  be  run, 
Along  Morea's  hill  the  setting  suu, 
Not,  as  in  northern  climes,  obscurely  bright, 
But  one  unclouded  blaze  of  living  light,"  &c. 

In  the  same  way,  the  later  cantos  of  Harold  are  steeped 
in  Switzerland  and  in  Italy.  Byron's  genius,  it  is  true,  re- 
quired a  stimulus;  it  could  not  have  revelled  among  the 
daisies  of  Chaucer,  or  pastured  by  the  banks  of  the  Doon 
or  the  Ouse,  or  thriven  among  the  Lincolnshire  fens.  He 
had  a  sincere,  if  somewhat  exclusive,  delight  in  the  storms 
and  crags  that  seemed  to  respond  to  his  nature  and  to  his 
age.  There  is  no  affectation  in  the  expression  of  the  wish, 
"  O  that  the  desert  were  my  dwelling-place !"  though  we 
know  that  the  writer  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  still 
craved  for  the  gossip  of  the  clubs.     It  only  shows  that — 

"  Two  desires  toss  about 
The  poet's  feverish  blood  ; 
One  drives  him  to  the  world  without, 
And  one  to  solitude." 

Of  Byron's  two   contemporary  rivals,  Wordsworth  had 
10 


-no  BYRON.  [chap. 

no  feverish  blood;  notliing  drove  Iiiin  to  the  world  with- 
out; coTisequoiitly  his  "eyes  avert  their  ken  from  half  of 
human  fate,"  and  his  influence,  though  perennial,  will  al- 
ways be  limited.  He  conquered  England  frinn  his  hills 
and  lakes;  but  his  sjiirit  has  never  crossed  the  Straits 
which  he  thought  too  narrow.  The  other,  with  a  fever 
in  his  veins,  calmed  it  in  the  sea  and  in  the  cloud,  and, 
in  some  degree  because  of  liis  very  excellencies,  has  failed 
as  yet  to  mark  the  world  at  large.  The  poets'  poet,  the 
cynosure  of  enthusiasts,  he  bore  the  banner  of  the  forlorn 
hope ;  but  Byron,  with  his  feet  of  clay,  led  the  ranks. 
Shelley,  aa  pure  a  philanthropist  as  St.  Francis  or  How- 
ard, could  forget  mankind,  and,  like  his  Adonais,  becouK! 
one  with  nature.  Byron,  who  professed  to  hate  his  fel- 
lows, was  of  them  even  more  than  for  them,  and  so  ap- 
pealed to  thorn  through  a  broader  sympathy,  and  held 
them  with  a  firmer  hand.  I]y  virtue  of  his  passion,  as 
Will  as  his  power,  he  was  enabled  to  represent  the  liuman 
tragedy  in  which  he  played  so  many  parts,  and  to  which 
his  external  universe  of  cloudless  moons,  and  vales  of  ev- 
eigiLiii,  and  lightning -riven  peaks,  are  but  the  various 
background,  lie  set  the  "anguish,  doubt,  desire,"  the 
whole  chaos  of  his  age,  to  a  music  whose  thunder- roll 
seems  to  have  inspired  tlie  opera  of  Lohengrin — a  music 
not  designed  to  teach  or  to  satisfy  "  the  budge  doctors  of 
the  Stoic  fur,"  but  which  will  continue  to  arouse  and  de- 
light the  sons  and  daughters  of  men. 

Madame  de  Stael  said  to  Byron,  at  Ouchy,  "  It  does  not 
do  to  war  with  the  world :  the  world  is  too  strong  for  the 
individual."  Goethe  only  gives  a  more  philosophic  form  to 
this  counsel  when  he  remarks  of  the  poet,  "He  put  himself 
into  a  false  position  by  his  assaults  on  Church  and  State. 
His  discontent  ends  in   negation.  ...  If  I  call  had  bad. 


XI.]        CHARACTERISTICS— PLACE  IN  LITERATURE.        211 

what  do  I  gain  ?  But  if  I  call  good  bad,  I  do  miscliief." 
The  answer  is  obvious :  as  long  as  men  call  bad  good, 
there  is  a  call  for  iconoclasts:  half  the  reforms  of  the 
world  have  begun  in  negation.  Such  comments  also 
point  to  the  common  error  of  trying  to  make  men  other 
than  they  are  by  lecturing  them.  This  scion  of  a  long- 
line  of  lawless  bloods — a  Scandinavian  Berserker,  if  there 
ever  was  one — the  literary  heir  of  the  Eddas — was  special- 
ly created  to  wage  that  war — to  smite  the  conventionality 
which  is  the  tyrant  of  England  with  the  hammer  of  Thor, 
and  to  sear  with  the  sarcasm  of  Mephistopheles  the  hollow 
hypocrisy — sham  taste,  sham  morals,  sham  religion — of  the 
society  by  which  he  was  surrounded  and  infected,  and  which 
all  but  succeeded  in  seducing  him.     But  for  the  ethereal 

essence — 

"  The  fount  of  fiery  life 
Which  served  for  that  Titanic  strife," 

Byron  would  have  been  merely  a  more  melodious  Moore 
and  a  more  accomplished  Brummell.  But  the  caged  lion 
was  only  half,  tamed,  and  his  continual  growls  were  his  re- 
demption.' His  restlessness  was  the  sign  of  a  yet  unbroken 
will.  He  fell  and  rose,  and  fell  again  ;  but  never  gave  up 
the  struggle  that  keeps  alive,  if  it  does  not  save,  the  soul. 
His  greatness,  as  well  as  his  weakness,  lay  in  the  fact  that 
from  boyhood  battle  was  the  breath  of  his  being.  To  tell 
him  not  to  fight  was  like  telling  "Wordsworth  not  to  re- 
flect, or  Shelley  not  to  sing.  His  instrument  is  a  trumpet 
of  challenge ;  and  he  lived,  as  he  appropriately  died,  in 
the  progress  of  an  unaccomplished  campaign.  His  work 
is  neither  perfect  architecture  nor  fine  mosaic ;  but,  like 
that  of  his  intellectual  ancestors,  the  elder  Elizabethans 
whom  he  perversely  maligned,  it  is  all  animated  by  the 
spirit  of  action  and  of  enterprise. 


•^12  BVliON.  [uiAi*.  xi. 


C 


In  good  portraits  his  lic:id  lias  a  lurid  l<«ol<,  as  if  it  had 
he'cn  at  a  higher  temperature  than  that  of  other  men. 
That  high  temperature  was  the  source  of  his  inspiration, 
and  the  secret  of  a  spell  which,  during  his  life,  commanded 
homage  and  drew  forth  love.  Mere  artists  are  often  man- 
ikins, Byron's  brilliant  though  unequal  genius  was  sub- 
ordinate to  the  power  of  his  personality  ;  he 

"  Dad  the  elements 
So  inix'd  in  him,  that  Nature  might  stand  up 
And  say  to  all  the  world — '  This  was  a  man.'  " 

\Vc  may  learn  much  from  him  still,  when  we  have  ceased 
to  disparage,  as  our  fathers  ceased  to  idolize,  a  name  in 
which  there  is  so  much  warning  and  so  much  example. 


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